Heart of Europe on the Periphery

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01 ASPEN.REVIEW 2020 CENTRAL EUROPE

COVER STORIES Colin Crouch, Vít Dostál, Csaba G. Kiss, Pavol Kosnáč, Kacper Szulecki POLITICS Jeffrey Gedmin ECONOMY Hanna Szymborska CULTURE Edit Zgut INTERVIEW David Alandete 9 771805 679005 No. 01/2020 No. — Heart of Europe on the Periphery the on Europe of Heart

Heart of Europe on the Periphery Peripherality– in Today’s Europe About Aspen

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No. 01 2020 ASPEN.REVIEW CONTENTS 04 FOREWORD The Heart Jiří Schneider 06 EDITORIAL The Far West Aleksander Kaczorowski

08 Peripherality in Today’s Europe Colin Crouch 16 Illiberal Remittances. Is Mass Migration and the Demise of the Myth of the West Fueling Populism in CEE? Kacper Szulecki 25 Farewell to Periphery Vít Dostál 30 INTERVIEW with Csaba G. Kiss: The Center of Europe Has an Inferiority Complex Zbigniew Rokita 36 AY L The Rise of Paramilitaries in Central and Eastern Europe Pavol Kosnáč

43 INTERVIEW with David Alandete: The Kremlin Connection Jakub Dymek 49 COMMENT It’s Time For Us To Reclaim Our Visegrad! Luboš Palata

53 INTERVIEW with Jeffrey Gedmin: Less World, More America Tomáš Klvaňa 58 Moscow Protests and their Consequences Ivan Preobrazhensky 63 The City and the Myth: Making Sense of the Lviv ‘Nationalist’ Image Mykola Riabchuk

78 Are Wealth Taxes the Panacea for the Ills of Capitalism? Hanna Szymborska 83 INTERVIEW with Ivan Mikloš: Every Eighteen Years a Real Estate Bubble is Popped and Followed by an Economic Crisis Robert Schuster 88 5G: Estonia Picks National Security over Technology Ahto Lobjakas

93 Perverted Democracies Edit Zgut 99 Merit is Privilege Benjamin Cunningham 106 Growth on the European Periphery Przemysław Wielgosz ASPEN.REVIEW

FOREWORD

Dear Readers,

In recent decades, Central Europe has returned politically and economically to Europe. Nevertheless, one can sense a growing uneasiness among part of the political class which feels that it has not been fully accepted in the center of EU decision-making. The first seeds of an illiberal mood in countries joining the club grew with the acceptance of the superiority of Western institutions. This raises several questions. Is a center-periphery polarity inevitable in the institutional setting of European integration? Can every nation be equally represented in its institutions regardless of its size and geographical location? What is wrong about being at the periphery? It could be a disadvantage in hierarchical systems, but not necessarily in networks. The center and periphery can be mutually complementary, but are more frequently in tension. Eventually one can turn the perspective upside down—as Viktor Orbán did in 2014—and claim that a country in a periphery could become morally superior to a decadent center. In her analysis, Edit Zgut identified “an impatience with liberal constraints on the government with checks and balances viewed as obstacles of getting things done for the people” as a major symptom of illiberal backsliding. She rightly points out, however, the other side of the coin: “a political state capture and systemic corruption is partly financed by the EU throughout generous subsidies”.

04 Aspen.Review/TheHeart According to Vít Dostál, dealing with the fringe of Europe has become both a moral and political issue because of notions such as “new avant-garde”, or “cultural counter revolution”. By nurturing “the identities of the lagging periphery” and by failing to “convince Western Europeans about the merit of European integration”, Central Europeans could find themselves “in the position of periphery unwanted, and perhaps forgotten again.“ Csaba G. Kiss also views peripherality through economic and moral lenses and describes it in terms of an inferiority complex. Kacper Szulecki provides unique insight into internal EU migration, its motivations and dynamism. Central European diasporas living in Western and Northern Europe, channeled back home their disenchantment with host countries, migration, and more broadly with Europe and ‘the West’ He men- tions the testimony of Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki who described his disappointment with previous encounters with Western Europe as a successful CEO in financial business. High hopes for recognition met with disinterest. I suspect more Central Europeans share such an experience. In the end, there is a broader question as to whether the whole of Europe will not become a periphery in global terms. Will the European Union be able to make effective political decisions in order to remain geo- politically relevant? Or will Europe find itself in the position of a powerless object of competition between the United States and the People‘s Republic of China?

JIŘÍ SCHNEIDER Executive Director, Aspen Institute CE

05 ASPEN.REVIEW

EDITORIAL The Far West If we look at what we call the European continent from the perspective of the people of China, India or Japan, we will see the westernmost cape of Eurasia—the Eurasian Far West. This part of the world is relatively small, but surprisingly diverse in terms of terrain, coastline, climate and the genetic pool of the natives, who are almost without exception descendants of visitors from the Middle East, the Caspian steppes or Central Asia—Greeks, Romans, Celts, Goths, Slavs and other nomads—and today of migrants from virtually all over the world. For some reason, still baffling the wisest scholars and flaunting all probabilities, this remote corner has managed to establish communication with the entire globe, reaching the farthest corners of the world and civilization, subjugating them for several centuries and drawing huge profits from it. Let us imagine nineteenth-century Japan colonizing most of Asia, Africa, North America, and Australia to boot, and its fleet dominating three oceans. This is what England succeeded in doing. Let us imagine jealous Korea es- tablishing its own outposts in North America, and proud Thailand guarding

06 Aspen.Review/TheFarWest its previously conquered possessions in South America. Let us imagine that the language of modern Brazil is not Portuguese, but Khmer. And that the lingua franca of the peoples of North Africa is the language of the ancient conquerors, let’s say Philippine. Something equally unbelievable was achieved in modern times by several European nations. Even more remarkable is the fact that after centuries of bloody conflicts and two world wars, Europeans created a common political organism and despite obvious adversities still want to de- velop it. Today, the European Union is the only real measure of European values; they are worth as much as the common European house that we are going to build. In this context, the celebrated pronouncement by French President Emmanuel Macron, critical of NATO, is a call for a discussion that has been postponed for too long. Macron presented his own vision of Europe, full of specific details. The EU must reinvent itself: stop relying on Americans, agree on a common approach to Russia, build European armed forces, link the distribution of funds with respecting rule of law, and revise the policy of EU enlargement (in short: grant rights and money to candidates for membership in installments, for good behavior, so as not to repeat the mistakes made in relation to the countries of Eastern Europe). In fact, the French leader called on the leaders of the EU Member States to join forces in the Eurasian game, probably the most important geopolitical game of the twenty first century. The leaders of Central European countries, including Germany, will have to quickly find an answer to this appeal.

ALEKSANDER KACZOROWSKI Editor in Chief Aspen Review Central Europe

07 E U R O P

08 Aspen.Review/ThePeriphery E ASPEN.REVIEW Peripherality COLIN CROUCH COVER STORY PERIPHERY CLUSTERING in Today’s ICT SECTOR U Europe

In contrast with clustering in traditional manufacturing industries, that in advanced manufacturing and services tends to prefer capital cities and others with attractive and convenient environments. The cumulative effect of this is to privilege a relatively small number of cities and regions in a restricted number of parts of Europe.

Important forces are driving differences between cities, regions, whole countries and eventually entire parts of Europe, making for ever bigger contrasts between thea north-western core and southern and eastern peripheries. One of the pressures behind this macro-level trend is a very micro-level factor: firms in many branches of the economy find advantages in clustering, in locating themselves geographically near to others in the same or related fields. In contrast with clustering in traditional manufacturing industries, that in advanced manufacturing and services tends to prefer capital cities and others with attractive and convenient environments. The cumulative effect of this is to privilege a relatively small number of cities and regions in a restrict- P ed number of parts of Europe. Market forces reinforce the trend, and government policy, understandably seeking to reinforce national ‘winners’, follows suit. Only highly imaginative, large-scale public policy actions at European Union (EU) and national levels stand a chance of reversing it.

09 COVER STORY Clustering is well known to economic geographers, most obviously PERIPHERY proximity to natural resources as in the case of the early steel industry needing to be located near reserves of iron ore for its raw materials as well as coal for its high energy demands. This explains the existence of regions like the Ruhr. The availability of reserves of skilled labor, drawn to an area because of the presence of some firms in a particular industry, will also serve as a magnet for other firms. One example is the film business, which tends to locate in a small number of famous places; another is the specialized investment activities of the financial sector, whose firms crowd together in high- rise buildings in specialized districts in a small number of cities. Particularly important for branches with high rates of innovation throughout the economy are flows of tacit knowledge: exchanges of information and ideas that happen spontaneously and beyond the reach of intellectual copyright law when people from various firms working on similar issues meet each other informally and socially. The region around San Francisco continues to be the core global hub for innovative information technology firms, despite a heavily overcrowded and deteriorating infrastructure and high land costs.

Wealthier Areas will Attract More Quality It had once been thought that, because many services activities lacked strong locational requirements, they would be spread more evenly across territories than those branches of manufacturing and mining that have very clear physical geography needs. This was expected to be especially true for high-technology activities, which could locate themselves more or less anywhere and had low space requirements in relation to their added value. The reality has turned out to be very different. True, services that are delivered person-to-person and without payment at the point of de- livery tend to be distributed according to population density. This is the case for many public services; schools, hospitals, care services, and police will tend to follow a straightforward population density pattern. Marketed personal services, such as restaurants, shops, hairdressers, and local transport serve local populations and will be partly determined by local demog- raphy, but also by the wealth of the local population. Wealthier areas will

10 attract more and better quality of these services, exacerbating existing in- equalities even as they create employment. Particularly important, however, are those high value-added services branches, which do not have a particular need for local markets, have few logistical constraints, and can choose where they go. This does not lead them to spread evenly across a territory, but to prefer high-quality locations, especially if they are primarily employing people with special skills, who need to be attracted. Capital cities, with their excellent transport connections, cultural amenities and access to government personnel, are especially favored, as are other culturally rich or beautifully appointed cities. These branches are strong examples of firms’ need to cluster to take advantage of the infor- mal knowledge exchanges that characterize innovation and creativity.

The Differential Location of Sectors and Income Economists argue that clustering eventually creates problems of land costs and overcrowded transport networks, bringing diminishing returns to the cluster and leading firms to relocate to new places. From their perspective, extreme clustering is a short-term issue. This may well have been the case for some manufacturing sectors, whose typically large space needs make them sensitive to the increases in land prices that accompany concentra- tion. However, firms in most services branches have low space to earnings ratios and therefore low land-cost elasticities. They are also particularly dependent on the tacit knowledge that flows around clusters, making them highly resistant to incentives to relocate. The region around San Francisco continues to be the core global hub for innovative information technology firms, despite a heavily overcrowded and deteriorating infrastructure and high land costs. Those services that are truly footloose are usually lower value-added activities, sensitive to local costs and not needing to attract scarce staff. It is these that are more likely to move to poorer, unattractive cities. Examples are warehousing (though with a larger space need), back offices engaged in routine tasks, and call centers. As this last point shows, there is often a relationship between the differential location of sectors and income. A location multiplier is at work, which becomes an inequality multiplier. Cities and regions that already possess advantages will attract the most activities with interesting future prospects and high-earning personnel. These in turn spend part of their income on local ser-

11 COVER STORY vices of various kinds, creating more local wealth. Local government benefits PERIPHERY from property taxes on the services firms, which enables it to maintain and enhance the attractiveness of the city. This attracts more firms seeking pleas- ant locations. A high proportion of the persons working in these services being highly educated, they are likely to produce children who also acquire a high level of education, boosting the quality of the local labour market and thereby attracting more firms needing highly educated workers. The opposite spiral affects cities that lack the amenities that attract high value-added activities. Young people, and especially well educated ones, leave the region altogether. Often the local economy stagnates; or it might, as in Germany, remain a strong industrial one, but with anxieties about a future in which manufacturing will become ever less important. The importance of strictly local exchanges of ideas is today moderated today by the communications opportunities of the Internet. Colleagues can work with each other across the world as rapidly as with someone in the next room. However, this is unlikely to cover the implicit exchanges of tacit knowledge. A totally isolated firm or research unit can connect itself to the Internet for exchanges, but that is all they will have. Firms located in geographical clusters can enjoy the same Internet exchanges, plus the tacit knowledge of geographical propinquity. Marginal cutting edges of this kind are particularly important for firms and workers in sectors in the throes of rapid innovation, where the development of ideas is particularly important to competitive advantage.

Clustering and the Formation of Peripheries The innovative sectors of the post-industrial economy are therefore creating new patterns of centrality and peripherality. This is happening within individual countries, as former mining and manufacturing cities fail to attract innovative services activities, and, once at the center of industrial economies, form a new periphery. Similar processes are at work across Europe as a whole, with entire countries playing the roles of cities and regions within nation states. Interesting evidence relevant to this hypothesis comes from the EU’s 2015 list of the cities and other geographical clusters that it regards as having the most advanced information and communications technology hubs among its (then) member states. ICT can be regarded as an indicator of

12 territorial economies with advanced skills in a growing, future-oriented branch. To qualify for the list, cities also had to be connected and networked with similar places around the world. These are not therefore cities that are particularly dependent on face-to-face networking. Nevertheless, they show distinct geographical patterns. The importance of strictly local exchanges of ideas is moderated today by the communications opportunities of the Internet. Colleagues can work with each other across the world as rapidly as with someone in the next room. The EU lists the 34 cities and districts scoring more than 40% in the EU’s ICT Hub measures. Twelve of these are located in Germany, seven in the UK, three in France. All but two of the rest (Madrid and Milan) are located in north-west Europe. Two of the German cases (Berlin and Dresden) are in the former East Germany. Otherwise there are none in the former state socialist bloc—and Berlin is a special case. It is interesting to note that, while the German cases are distributed widely across the country (although mainly in the west), all but one of the British cases are within, or in easy travel reach of, London. The exception is Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. All three French cases are within or in very easy travel distance from Paris. Nearly all cases in smaller countries were in capital cities, or (Uusimaa, near Helsinki) near them, although there were also Brabant and Louvain in Bel- gium and Delft in the Netherlands. The capital city regions of all western European member states figure in the list, except for the south-western cases of Athens, Lisbon and Rome (although Italy is represented by Milan). The ambiguous Berlin is the only Ccentral European capital in the list.

The Austerity Policies Imposed are Reinforcing the Gap The ICT sector is by no means the only sector of interest to the advanced European economy; others may have different patterns. It does, however, serve as an important indicator of a growing core/ periphery separation. The superior incomes and wealth of north-western over eastern and Ccen- tral Europe are of course of very long standing. What is notable is how an advanced new sector like ICT follows and therefore reinforces those earlier patterns; its novelty does not challenge them and provide opportunities for new places.

13 COVER STORY Similar though their situations seem, the European south-west and PERIPHERY central-east are on different trajectories from each other. The countries of the south-west (Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain) used to find their role as suppliers of low-cost goods, especially white goods, clothing, textiles, and fresh food to the wealthier countries of the north-west. To be a low-cost producer is a peripheral role, but in these cases it was a stable one. There were also exceptions to it, such as high-quality machine tools and fashion goods from central Italy, motor vehicles from north-west Italy and parts of Spain. These high-quality sectors survive, but (apart from fresh food) the low-cost role has been lost as, within Europe the countries of the center and east, and more globally the Far East, have taken it. The austerity policies imposed on the south-western European countries following the financial crisis of 2007- 8 and consequent Eurocrisis are today reinforcing the gap between them and the north-west, but did not create it. It was there already in the failure of these countries to adapt to the loss of their low-cost role following the arrival of the new entrants. That failure was as much a cause of the southern debt crisis as the other way round. The collapse of communism opened a new way for the post-1989 political elites and the media to de-historicize and distort such fundamental concepts of democracy as liberalism, feminism, socialism and human rights.

Public Investments Could Reverse the Contrasts The situation in Ccentral and Eeastern Europe is more varied, which is not surprising, as this is a larger and more diverse region. Some countries— mainly the Czech and Slovak Republics, and Slovenia—have becomethe important new centersres of manufacturing in Europe, even if they are peripheral to branches like the new ICT economy. These countries have higher proportions working in manufacturing and related sectors than elsewhere in Europe. Hungary had been part of this group, but has dropped behind in recent years. The same is not so true for the rest of Ccentral Europe or of ex-Yugoslavia, which seem to be fully peripheral. Deep historical patterns therefore lie behind center-periphery differences in Europe. Areas that were once fundamental to industrial Europe, such as the manufacturing cities of the British north and midlands, leave

14 the centrecenter and go to the periphery, but other historically central cities, like capitals, rather than entirely new places, are forming the new core of post-industrial Europe. Without major public intervention to establish infra- ICT can be regarded as an indicator of territorial economies with advanced skills in a growing, future-oriented branch. structure and generally desirable characteristics in new regions, it is difficult to see how this will be reversed. The example of California is often cited as an instance of how a large region became home to the new and highly prof- itable information technology industry. But California already had a long history of being a desirable location for many activities, attributable partly to its natural environment, but also to massive investments by the federal government, dating back originally to the early twentieth century, when the state of California was economically backward. The original investments were in armaments, aircraft and other military business, moving on later to those in the infant computer industry. It is likely that only major public investments by the EU and by individual governments could reverse the slide to extreme centerre-periphery contrasts across Europe. Such investments already exist; the EU’s contribution to improving infrastructure in the south and east of the Union has been extraordinary and has brought major positive results. The problem is that the market is working all the time to undermine any rebalancing and exag- gerate existing patterns. Also, public policy itself to some extent has to echo what the market does. If a new high-value-added sector develops, promis- ing increased wealth, governments have to respond to its needs for various public provisions. But every time they do so, they reinforce the advantages of those cities and regions against those of others, whose lack of comparable facilities prevents them from being the sites of similar developments, and keeps them in the periphery. This is not an easy dilemma to resolve.

COLIN CROUCH is a professor emeritus of the University of Warwick and external scientific member of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies at Cologne. His most recent books include Post-Democracy (2004); The Strange Non-death of Neoliberalism (2011); Making Capitalism Fit for Society (2013); Governing Social Risks in Post-Crisis Europe (2015); The Knowledge Corrupters: Hidden Consequences of the Financial Takeover of Public Life (2015); and Society and Social Change in 21st Century Europe (2016). ASPEN.REVIEW KACPER SZULECKI Illiberal COVER STORY DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT POPULISM IRON CURTAIN Remittances. Is Mass Migration and the Demise of the Myth of the West Fueling Populism in CEE?

16 Aspen.Review/ChaseTheWest Freedom of movement—particularly to travel and work in the “West”—was something Central Europeans dreamed of behind the Iron Curtain, and used to be given as the number one rationale for joining the EU. What if mass migration and democratic backsliding are not just coincidental? Are we overlooking the impact of personal experiences of the ‘West’ on CEE politics?

While Europe is always said to be in crisis, the recent rise in Euroscep- tic attitudes and the increased prominence of populist and nationalist forces in parliaments and governments has sparked widespread concern among liberals. Commentators speak of ‘democratic backsliding’—the erosion of constitutional liberalism and an orientation toward illiberal and authoritarian hybrid regimes. This trend is prominent in Central Europe, where democratic consolidation was arguably never fully completed. Viktor Orbán’s self-proclaimed illiberal Hungary, the indirect personal rule of Jarosław Kaczyński in Poland, and the gradual introduction of illiberal ‘innovation’ in the Czech Republic under president Miloš Zeman and oligarch-turned-prime-minister Andrej Babiš are only examples as other CEE countries are also struggling with the erosion of liberal democratic standards. There are two common explanations for this backsliding. One emphasizes domestic dynamics, arguing that economic conditions, political culture, and other supply and demand factors have worked together to bring illiberal forces to power.1 The other focuses on the simultaneous emergence of similar developments in different countries. The concept of ‘authoritarian diffusion’ attempts to capture this phenomenon,2 along with looser notions of a ‘Trump effect’ (even though CEE backsliding surely began before Donald Trump took office), or the invocation of some populistZeitgeist haunting Europe. Both domestic and transnational factors surely matter. What is striking, however, is the rather simplistic image of European politics and of the European Union as a set of easily separable polities and national societies. Both above explanations largely ignore the multi-level nature of EU governance and the degree of contact and exchange between European citizens, including perhaps the most significant ‘channel’ of East–West exchange in the past two decades: migration.

17 COVER STORY Chase the West or Move to the West? DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT Following the well-known, symbolic scenes of 1989: Poland’s semi-democratic election, Imre Nagy’s reinterment in Budapest, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the key-ringing crowds in Prague’s Wenceslas Square, a no less symbolic journey had begun. Its culmination in political terms was Central European countries’ European Union accession in 2004 and 2007. In the context of a ‘return to Europe’, the mass wave of migrations that followed was portrayed in positive terms, not as a response to high unemployment and economic deprivation at home. For the new EU members, or at least for much of their elites, the Eastern Enlargement was finally undoing the Yalta division of Europe. For decades, domestic dissidents as well as political exiles—most famously the Czech writer Milan Kundera, but also his compatriot Jaroslav Šabata, the Slovak intellectual Milan Šimecka, the Hungarians György Schöpflin and Mihály Vajda, the Polish activist Jacek Kuroń or exile writer Juliusz Miero- szewski—tried to cast ‘Central Europe’ not so much as a cultural space, but as a geopolitical project with a non-Eastern political identity.3 The “return to Europe” provided the master narrative, and the process leading to accession was characterized by high levels of Euro-enthusiasm among CEE societies. While 2004 and 2007 marked the end of one journey, it was also the beginning of another one, less symbolic, more real—mass migration. Almost overnight, CEE countries became the most important senders of migrants to Western and Northern Europe (the EU15 as well as Norway or Iceland), with the peak number of people moving there reaching an astonishing six million. A whole ‘continent moving West’.4

A Divisive Exodus In the context of a “return to Europe”, the mass wave of migrations that followed was portrayed in positive terms, not as a response to high unemployment and economic deprivation at home, but as an opportunity for improving life chances in the West. That ‘European dream’ coming true was coupled with the dominant vision of intra-European migrations as ‘fluid’ and largely temporary. You go, you see, you earn, and you come back. Everyone wins.

18 Parts of the host populations shared these latter hopes, since the ‘Eu- 1) Ben Stanley, Populism in Central and Eastern Europe. In ropean dream’ of ‘Eastern’ migrants was immediately reinterpreted as a Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser, Paul A. Taggart, Paulina Ochoa possible nightmare of ‘Western’ societies, personified by the Polish plumber Espejo and Pierre Ostiguy (eds.), Oxford Handbook of arriving to take their jobs. Populism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. Fifteen years since the Eastern Enlargement, we know surprisingly 140-160.

little about the impact this divisive exodus had on intra-European relations. 2) Aron Buzogány (2017): Illiberal Democracy in Symptomatically, Thomas Risse’s landmark work on European identity Hungary. Authoritarian Diffusion or Domestic does not even mention intra-EU diasporas, although it pays considerable Causation? In Democratization 24 (7): 1307–1325. attention to the impact of the enlargement on European identity.5 3) Kacper Szulecki (2015) Heretical Geopolitics of Central Europe. Dissident Intellectuals From Liberal Democracy with Love and an Alternative European Order. Geoforum 65: 25-36. Yes, the impact of migrants on the host countries has received atten- 4) A Continent Moving West? tion, particularly in the context of the Brexit vote where CEE migrants EU Enlargement and Labour Migration from Central and were turned into a scapegoat. What we are only beginning to realize is Eastern Europe, edited by Richard Black, Godfried the scale and nature of the influence this massive migration wave had Engbersen, Marek Okólski and Christina Pantîru, Amsterdam: on the sending societies. New EU member states have to deal with the Amsterdam University Press, 2010. www.imiscoe.org/ fact that a large share of their populations suddenly resides abroad. In publications/library/search/2- imiscoe-research-series/15-a- absolute terms, Romania, with ca. 3 million, and Poland, ca. 2 million continent-moving-west

emigrants, were the largest contributors, but perhaps relative numbers 5) Thomas Risse (2010): A Community of Europeans? capture impact better. Migration rates vary from 5% of the population of Transnational Identities and Public Spheres. Ithaca: Cornell the Czech Republic to nearly a fifth of the populations of Latvia (17%) University Press. 6 and Lithuania (19.9%). Most of those who moved left someone behind: 6) Magdalena Lesińska (2016) Polityczna rola diaspory na spouses, children, boyfriends and girlfriends, parents. Taken together, przykładzie krajów Europy Środkowo-Wschodniej. Politeja this makes post-2004 migration a generational experience for almost all (13): 77–98. CEE societies. It was assumed that when exposed to life in mature democracies and welfare states, CEE migrants would—whether they settled or returned to their country of origin—integrate themselves into a ‘European way of life’. Apart from financial gains, an important element emphasized by the pro-European, liberal CEE elites was the foreseen socialization of migrants into European values and political practices. It was assumed that when exposed to life in mature democracies and welfare states, CEE migrants would—whether they settled or returned to their country of origin—integrate themselves into a ‘European way of life’.

19 COVER STORY Indeed, some research on diasporas confirms this belief, suggesting DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT that through settling in a consolidated democracy, migrants from less consolidated transitional regimes might internalize values and adopt the practices of their hosts, and in turn “remit democracy home”.7 Much like exiles and Western charities before 1989, contemporary migrants were to send gifts and parcels eastwards—also in the form of ideas of how ‘good governance’ works. The idea of democratic remittances does not translate unproblematically to the context of contemporary Europe. Democratic remittances are as probable as are illiberal remittances. Migration researchers have shown that the experience of emigration to a consolidated democracy increases migrants’ satisfaction with democracy,8 even though some may have minimal contact with the host society, e.g. because they do not know the language, and financial success may be a factor here.9 Those experiences can then lead to ‘democratic remittances’ as migrants return or share their experience with families and friends back home. Yet, a passing look at the empirical evidence suggests that the idea of democratic remittances does not translate unproblematically to the context of contemporary Europe. The CEE diasporas living in Western and Northern Europe, once hailed as the vanguard of liberalism in terms of their political preferences as expressed in sending country elections (e.g. the 2007 Polish snap election where migrants were said to contribute to ousting Kaczyńskis’ Law and Justice), now appear much more het- erogeneous. Poland’s 2015 election saw a surprising shift, where the diaspora supported right-wing populists and nationalists to a much greater extent than did voters at home. The same was true for Latvians in 2018.10 And while a number of disclaimers are due: the diaspora turnout is extremely low, and hardly representative for the entire migrant population; it var- ies geographically within and across receiving and sending countries; demographic factors play a role; the vote is volatile etc.—what we can surely say is that democratic remittances are as probable as are illiberal remittances.

20 Democratic remittances presuppose a clear hierarchy, with a superior 7) Clarisa Pérez-Armendáriz and David Crow (2009): Do host country (or region), which appears and feels ‘better’ than the home left Migrants Remit Democracy? International Migration, behind. The illiberal sway among migrants can be due to the fact that the Political Beliefs, and Behavior in Mexico. Comparative West’s superiority is no longer a political and cultural axiom at home, and Political Studies 43 (1), pp. 119–148 that personal experiences can bring disenchantment as much as fascination 8) Romana Careja and Patrick or mere satisfaction. Emmenegger (2011): Making Democratic Citizens: The Effects of Migration Experience on Political Attitudes in A Return to Where? Central and Eastern Europe. Comparative Political Studies 45 Central European dissident intellectuals tried to challenge the East/West (7), pp. 875–902. divide in different ways—by moving Central Europe closer to the West, like 9) William Mishler and Richard Rose (2001). What Kundera, or by dissolving the demarcation line and making Central Europe Are the Origins of Political Trust? Testing Institutional a bridge between two zones, like Šabata and Mieroszewski. However, their and Cultural Theories in Post-communist Societies. heretical geopolitical project has been completely derailed. The division Comparative Political Studies, 34(1), 30–62. lives on, but what does seem to fade is another feature of Cold War image- 10) Aija Lulle, 2018, Welcome ry—the myth of the ‘West’. to the Geography of Populism: The Diaspora Vote in the “In the thirty years of post-communism”—argues Jarosław Kuisz—the UK during the 2018 Latvian Elections, LSE EUROPP Blog. citizens of Visegrad countries have never been closer or more similar to western 11) Jarosław Kuisz, The Europeans than they are today, in terms of their material status or the function- Two Faces of European Disillusionment. An End to ing of state institutions. Yet there can be no doubt that something significant Myths about the West and the East, Eurozine, 1 April 2019. has changed in recent years. This is simply that in the Visegrad countries, the 12) ‘Zawsze będziemy 11 post-communist myth about the West has lost the power to convince”. krajem Wschodu: Z Markiem Magierowskim rozmawia To be sure, in Central and Eastern Europe there was always a duali- Łukasz Pawłowski’, Kultura Liberalna, 24/05/2016 ty of intellectual traditions, as far as the relationship with the West is con- 13) Aleksander Kaczorowski, cerned. On the one hand, there were those who either wanted to imitate or Returning to the East, Aspen Review, N. 4, 2019, pp. 6-7. Also: to learn from the West, and they remained in constant struggle with those, György Schöpflin, Europe after Thirty Years, a Long Chapter who took pride in not being like the Westerners. Zapadniki and the Slavo- of Misperceptions? Aspen Review, N. 4, 2019, pp. 19-23; philes in Russia are perhaps the best-known examples, but such internal Kacper Szulecki, ‘Conclusion: Can Dissidentism Explain cleavages existed across Central Europe. In Poland they go back as far as Post-Dissident Politics?’, in Dissidents in Communist the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries, and the struggle between the Central Europe: Human Rights and the Emergence of New Westernizers and the Sarmatians. Transnational Actors, London: Palgrave, 2019, pp. 207-229. Ideological pedigrees aside, what is important is that for the first time in post-War history, in many formerly Westward-looking societies of CEE, the ultimately positive connotation of ‘the West’ is losing ground and political majorities are able to say legitimately: we do not want to belong to the West. “We will always be an Eastern land”—claimed Marek Magierowski, the state secretary to Poland’s president Andrzej Duda.12

21 COVER STORY Invisibility and Resentment DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT Where is this demise of the myth of the West coming from? Among political elites, it obviously has many sources. Part of the rhetorical turn to a new- ly imagined ‘East’ is a strategic response to the criticism CEE’s politicians deviating from liberal democratic norms have received. For years ‘What will Europe say’ was the ultimate disciplining phrase, allowing pro-Western elites to keep opponents at bay. Shaming and blaming, based on invocations of Western values and ideals, was still visibly effective during Law and Jus- tice’s first term in office in 2005-2007. Since ‘catching up with the West’ was a universally accepted par- adigm, and liberal elites were unanimous with their open fascination (it was ‘sheer bliss’, Donald Tusk said of his first trip behind the Iron Curtain), challengers were powerless. Illiberal politicians learned their lesson, however, and understood that instead of being penalized for breaking them, they can refuse to accept the rules altogether. Much like East-Asian au- tocracies of the 1990s, who responded to human rights pressure with the discourse of ‘Asian values’, Central Europe’s populists built their narrative on an affirmation of the local ways (close to ‘the people’), and the rebuttal of any ‘foreign’ elite impositions.13 For the first time in post-War history, in many formerly Westward-looking societies of CEE, the ultimately positive connotation of “the West” is losing ground. The economic and social problems that Western Europe faces, and the relative improvement of living standards, pointed out by Kuisz, certainly do not help in maintaining the West’s mythical superiority. There is another part to this story, however, that of personal experiences, even more important in the context of mass migration. Populist political elites also seem to be prone to a broader disenchantment with the West. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, formerly a successful financial CEO, was speaking of his own encounters with Western Europe in terms of disappointment, in which high hopes for recognition met with disinterest.14 Emotional resentment is easily channeled towards populist politics. While CEE migrants are often described as ‘invisible minorities’, which supposedly puts them in a more privileged position than that of most non-European migrants, like in Morawiecki’s account, they can feel ‘invis-

22 ible’ through the lack of recognition they feel they deserve and not being 14) Keynote speech by Polish Deputy Prime Minister treated as part of the in-group, where they feel they belong. This was par- Mateusz Morawiecki at the 10th Congress of Polish Student ticularly visible in the accounts of post-Brexit CEE migrants, complaining Societies in the UK, hosted by Jarosław Kuisz. Available that Indian or Pakistani minorities were not threatened by the ‘Leave’ vote, at: www.youtube.com/ watch?v=2t538Oc7yqU not able to comprehend why ‘they’ feel more at home in Britain than ‘we’— 15) See: Marek Pawlak, white, Christian, Europeans. Zawstydzona tożsamość. Emocje, ideologie i władza w życiu polskich migrantów w Norwegii. Kraków: Wyd. UJ, Disenchantment and the peculiar migrant experience 2018. Also: Elżbieta Hołdyńska, Emigracja Ambicji. Poznań: Recent ethnographic studies of EU diasporas suggest that there might Zysk i S-ka, 2017. be a causal mechanism in play, neither directly linked to demographics 16) Kees Van Kersbergen, (2010) Quasi-Messianism and nor to conscious political agency. Drawing on first-hand accounts, some the Disenchantment of Politics. In Politics and Religion, 3(1): authors have identified shame, resentment and disenchantment as key 28–54, here 28. 15 emotional drivers of the migration experience. It fuels a broader dis- 17) Marta Bivand Erdal and Aleksandra Lewicki (2015) enchantment: with host countries, migration, and more broadly with Eu- Moving Citizens: Citizenship Practices among Polish rope and ‘the West’. migrants in Norway and the United Kingdom, Social I use disenchantment rather than disillusionment to underline the Identities, 22:1, 112-128; Marek Pawlak (2013): Trust, quasi-messianic character of the geopolitical ‘return to Europe’ narrative, Reciprocity and Mistrust. The Pragmatics of Living Mobile which was put to test by the Eastern Enlargement. For Kees Van Kersbergen, Lives between Poland and Norway, [in:] J. Kulpinska et al. quasi-messianism concerns the “visionary anticipation of a better world (eds.), EuroEmigrants, Kraków: Wydawnictwo PAU: 1-19. that is attainable” which accords politics “an enchanting quality”.16 This 18) „Anna Komorowska: disenchantment is triggered in situations involving a discrepancy between Emigracja to nie zawsze dramat. To szansa”, Gazeta the real and anticipated levels of welfare, prosperity, social status, but also Wyborcza, 15 May 2015. the subjective sense of belonging to the West.17 The most telling example of just how outdated the ‘European dream’ has become and how naïve it seems to many who actually lived through it, is the backlash against the words of Poland’s then first lady, Anna Komorows- ka, who suggested that “emigration is a chance” and should not “be treated as a drama”.18 A phrase that would most likely be uncritically accepted in 2005 was used as yet additional evidence of the liberal elite’s ‘detachment’, and effectively used in the populist electoral campaign that swept her hus- band and his party out of power. Migrants often face social degradation, at least in the initial phase of their settling in a new country. They land in a lower social stratum, often working below their qualifications. As the lowest-paid jobs are in many countries dominated by other migrants, before the Enlargement mostly non-European, on top of disenchantment, many CEE migrants live through

23 COVER STORY a very particular experience of the host society, detached both from the im- DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT age of home countries left behind, and from the actual image of host countries that most their residents hold. Many CEE migrants live through a very particular experience of the host society, detached both from the image of home countries left behind, and from the actual image of host countries that most their residents hold. This peculiar experience is much more aligned with far-right stories of an ‘Islamization of Europe’, absurd as they may appear to middle-class Westerners, and overall contribute to the further undermining of Western symbolic superiority. Nativist and far-right radicalization can be the outcome, feeding on disenchantment and misperception. To be fair, host countries in the West do very little to limit that, since intra-EU migration is often not seen as an object of conscious integration policies. Unfortunately, due to the scale of CEE migration, this skewed experience is not only limited to the migrants themselves—it can be diffused to their broader social network. The scale and nature of this phenomenon requires much research by anthropologists, human geographers, sociologists and political scientists. For now, we can only conclude that it is plausible that a broad, multi-dimensional disenchantment with the West, to which mass migration greatly contributes, is among the factors fueling far-right and populist tendencies. Liberal elites both in sending and host countries can no longer overlook the nuanced migration experience, including illiberal remittances and the personal burdens emigration involves.

KACPER SZULECKI researcher at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo and member of the editorial board of the Polish weekly “Kultura Liberalna”. He holds a PhD from Konstanz, and an MSc from VU Amsterdam. His research is mostly on European politics, most importantly energy and climate policy, as well as transnational diffusion, protest movements, and dissent. An expat for over thirteen years, he currently leads the project “DIASPOlitic: Understanding the Political Dynamics of Émigré Communities in an Era of European Democratic Backsliding”, financed by the Research Council of Norway.

24 ASPEN.REVIEW Farewell to VÍT DOSTÁL COVER STORY IDENTITY EUROPEAN INTEGRATION Periphery REFUGEE CRISIS

Central Europe has long been struggling with its peripheral position in Europe. What exactly is the nature of this outer edge and can it be cast away? Or is self- stigmatization a part of Central European identity? Is it being used as an excuse to avoid addressing real and pressing issues?

Periphery as a Fate? Central Europe ponders its excluded position practically non-stop, and such a narrative has remained current for the last thirty years. In 1989, we were a forgotten periphery, which struggled for the opportunity to catch up with Western Europe, and eventually became a part of the European integration project. The slogan ‘Return to Europe’, found in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, bore the symbolism of transition from undemocratic structures to rule of law, from centrally planned deprivation to prosperity and affluence.

Aspen.Review/PeripheryAsAFate 25 COVER STORY Thirty years later, the debates show no sign of waning. We still engage IDENTITY in discussions about our existence on the periphery, or perhaps more precisely, our provinciality. There are two aspects that mingle here, economic and moral. It is relatively easy to ascertain if one plays the second league as far as the economy is concerned, quantify the measures needed to be taken and work on closing the divide between unevenly developed corners of Eu- rope. The debate on moral periphery, on the other hand, goes hand in hand with the vision of the European Union we entertain, and whether we really want to catch up with Western Europe after all. While per capita GDP of Central European countries has been catching up with other peripheral countries the traditional European regions from the north of Italy to Benelux countries are as far away as ever. The fact that Central Europe economically lags behind their Western counterparts is a completely normal and simple fact that has had its reasons in history, and cannot be reversed after a few years of successful economic integration. While per capita GDP of Central European countries has been catching up with other peripheral countries, such as Greece or Portugal, the traditional European regions from the north of Italy to Benelux countries are as far away as ever. What is more, we have never been well connected to these regions, be it through infrastructure, trading networks, cultural closeness or political decision-making. The European Union has many tools and policies at its disposal to address directly the uneven development between prosperous regions and less fortunate ones, but despite the efforts, the differences are vast. We could find many instances where Central and Eastern Eu- rope fares significantly worse, be it lagging behind in productivity, in lack of world class scientific research,or not having a single kilometer of high speed railway. Joining the EU resulted not only in unprecedented integration with westward regions, but in integration within Central Europe itself and in an outstripping of the legacy of the Austrian-Hungarian empire as well.

26 Yet thanks to it geographic location the region has a great potential to leave these economic backwaters. The central location, in the past a strategic and security liability, appears advantageous in the integrated whole. We should not forget that joining the EU resulted not only in unprecedented integration with westward regions, but in integration within Central Europe itself and in an outstripping of the legacy of the Austri- an-Hungarian empire as well. Thus it is possible to ascertain that despite its current peripheral economic status the states of Central Europe have great potential to move into top tier economies.

Where is the Moral Periphery? The moral and political issue dealing with the fringe of Europe is a complex one, as it is difficult to pinpoint what and where the center towards which we are to relate actually is. Some critics of the current political development in the Visegrad Group countries claim we are drifting more and more towards the edges and are falling into the dark pits of provinciality. Others claim that Central Europe is currently at the vanguard of true ‘European values’ and assert a higher moral ground. Criticism of political development in Central Europe often goes hand in hand with denouncing cooperation among V4 countries as an epitome of lack of solidarity and concern only for one’s own issues. In such debates, the relationship between the center and its periphery serves as a mere tool to criticize others or extol our actions. Yet it is essential that we study how the identities of ‘the lagging periphery’, ‘the new avant-garde’, or ‘the cultural counter revolution’ are created and which attributes they come to embody. It could be useful when attempting to explain the rift concerning the distribution of migrants and refugees in 2015, whose roots are nevertheless deeper. Critics of political development in V4 countries point out weakened rule of law, stigmatization of minorities or the rule of conservative government a the attributes of the peripheral lagging behind. Quite often we hear that today we would not qualify to join the EU as we would not meet the Copenhagen criteria for new members. Criticism of political development

27 COVER STORY in Central Europe often goes hand in hand with denouncing cooperation IDENTITY among V4 countries as an epitome of lack of solidarity and concern only for one’s own issues. Instead of asking why it is that the electorate supports such policies, as recent elections show, there are voices, namely in the Czech Re- public and Slovakia, calling for an exit from the V4 group. Yet such a step would not solve anything. First, it is necessary to convince our societies that a democratic and law abiding state is more beneficial than anyother alternative. Second, it is impossible to leave Central Europe, and if we want a different Visegrad, then we have to come up with a plausible alternative. The ‘Orbanization’ of the Visegrad group is occurring because other countries have allowed it. Third, as I have mentioned earlier, the integration of our region is a unique opportunity to overcome economic disparity. Closing the door on openness and integration would only bring more problems and difficulties. The issue of whether Visegrad is an impediment to our civilizational development is tied to the politicization of this group. In 2015, when the refugee crisis suddenly hit Visegrad, cooperation became all the rage for all concerned politicians. Until that time it had been hovering at the fringes of their interests, yet with the rejection of the relocation quotas for asylum seekers it became the trademark of regional cooperation and the push back against Brussels. It became a symbol of ‘common sense’ for many politicians and part of the public. V4 politicians often talk about mistakes committed by Western Europeans which they are not willing Unfortunately, today’s Visegrad leaders are fanning the conflict between the West and East within the EU. The aim of the Central Europe should be the exact opposite—bridging differences, deepening the cooperation. to make. In their view, today’s Western Europe is not worth following. The story of returning to the West ceased to be part of the political mainstream. On the contrary, politicians present ideological and cultural differences between the West and the Center East. This dichotomy is largely artificial, as Western and Central European societies are not monolithic blocks. As the recent polling shows, only Hungary’s policy-makers are optimistic about the importance of V4, with the Czech and Slovak ones being decidedly less so.

28 For a Europe without peripheries The emancipation of Central Europe is not a misstep. On the contrary, it is a necessity. That is why it is important to consider the objectives our region aims to reach. If V4 wants to inspire, be a vector of positive change and push for openness that brings along prosperity and growth of our societies, then it can benefit itself and Europe as a whole. If, on the other hand, we decide to opt for the position of the oppressed periphery, which finds itself in permanent opposition toward the domineering center, without convincing Western Europeans about the merit of European integration, we could find ourselves in the position of an unwanted periphery, and be perhaps forgotten again. In 2015, when the refugee crisis suddenly hit Visegrad, cooperation became all the rage for all concerned politicians. Until that time it had been hovering at the fringes of their interests. Unfortunately, today’s Visegrad leaders are fanning the conflict between the West and East within the EU. The aim of the Central Europe should be the exact opposite—bridging differences, deepening the cooperation, so that we can achieve a Europe without peripheries.

VÍT DOSTÁL is the Director of the AMO Research Center. He focuses on Czech foreign and European policy, Central European cooperation, and Polish foreign and domestic policy. He has worked for AMO since 2006. During that time he has authored or edited many publications dealing with Czech foreign policy and Central Europe. He actively represents AMO at conferences and in the media. Vít Dostál completed a doctoral program on European Studies at Masaryk University in Brno in 2017 with a dissertation on the “Paradiplomacy of Czech Regions—Regions as Actors of International Relations”. He did study and work internships in Warsaw and Brussels. | Photo: AMO ASPEN.REVIEW ZBIGNIEW ROKITA

COVER STORY EUROPEAN DREAM STEREOTYPES CLEAVAGES

Csaba G. Kiss: The Center of Europe Has an Inferiority Complex

Slovenia and Croatia could be admitted to the V4. The group would then extend from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic. But what are we talking about when 30 years after 1989 it takes ten hours by train to travel from Warsaw to Budapest?—says Professor Csaba G. Kiss interviewed by Zbigniew Rokita.

ZBIGNIEW ROKITA: How will the ...Just like during the 1956 revolution. thirty years that have passed Exactly. We didn’t know what would since 1989 go down in the his- happen next, what plans Moscow or Wash- tory of Central Europe? ington had. We also did not know what capitalism really was, what the buy-out CSABA G. KISS: As a new beginning of our assets by Western companies and and a quest for its place in Europe. generally privatization would bring. There When we wrote the agenda of the were many uncertainties and that’s when Hungarian Democratic Forum in the quest began. June 1989, we wanted Hungary to become a neutral country, we were And has Central Europe already thinking about Finlandization.... found its place in Europe?

30 Aspen.Review/InferiorityComplex Not entirely. I would say that it has been And this is what produces the done in 60-70%. We are still chasing the disillusionment of Central European West economically. So many millions of elites in the European Union and, people from our region still have to live more broadly, in the West? The abroad. Our voice is still hardly heard. departure from Christian values? We dreamed of becoming a country of Yes. Many German researchers say that we Western Europe, because Central Europe are now living in a post-national era. I can- belongs to the West—Hungary, for example, not agree with that. Another thing is that has been part of it since St. Stephen chose I am against nineteenth century national- Rome, rather than Byzantium, in the ninth ism, which is why I consider the Visegrad century. You remember Milan Kundera Group a great success. Remember how writing about this in 1983—the kidnapping tense the relations between our peoples of Europe. Meanwhile, we are still at the were in the interwar period. frontier of Europe, and to some extent the West has become less attractive today. We It ended with the annexation can see that Western Europe is in crisis. of Zaolzie by Poland. We dreamed of becoming And southern Slovakia by Hungary. a country of Western We also have a common memory that Europe, because Central brings us closer together. The basic mem- Europe belongs to the ory of Europe is the Holocaust, but there is West—Hungary, for no room in it for Communism beyond the example, has been part Iron Curtain. For them, Central Europe is of it since St. Stephen an uncharted area. The 75th anniversary chose Rome, rather than of the Normandy landing aroused great Byzantium. interest in the West, but the anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising did not. What kind of crisis? Our countries should jointly promote the This is, above all, a crisis of values. history of the region in the West. In the House of European History in Brussels, Such as liberal democracy? Józef Piłsudski is presented as an ex- That too, but I am thinking mainly of tremist, almost a fascist. We can perhaps Christian values. The founding fathers of speak about authoritarianism in Poland the European Communities were Chris- between the two World Wars, but to call tian. But I heard from the Germans some him an extremist? time ago that the European Union is, first Western Europe does not know much and foremost, an economic organization. about our part of the continent. In Poland

31 or Hungary we learn about the English ment of the European Union to the Balkans or French Revolution, but they are not is important, and the accession of Macedo- learning about the Spring of Nations. In nia and Serbia is particularly significant. their eyes, we are generally second-class Europeans. Speaking of enlargements, would Western Europe does not it make any sense to expand the know much about our part Visegrad Group? There are many of the continent. In Poland voices saying that V4 lost its sense of or Hungary we learn about purpose when it fulfilled its role, so the English or French perhaps new members would invest Revolution, but they are the organization with a new dynamic. not learning about the I agree. Slovenia and Croatia could be Spring of Nations. accepted. V4 would then extend from the Baltic Sea to the Adriatic, and it could Has something changed in the gradually expand this cooperation even way Western Europeans per- further to the Black Sea countries. But ceive us over the last 30 years? what are we talking about when 30 years Not much. Something has changed, but after 1989 it takes ten hours to travel by not much. train from Warsaw to Budapest?

And aren’t we ourselves in Hungary, You mentioned the Balkans. In Poland or the Czech Republic her book Maria Teodorova names contributing to us being viewed the countries of the region that critically? With Poland and Hungary produce positive associations dismantling the institutions of liberal with the concept of the Balkans. democracy, Hungary and the Czech Only Bulgarians. Republic flirting with Putin and with aggressive language on the part of Yes, and also the Albanians. What the highest ranking politicians? about the concept of Central Europe Yes, sometimes our policy is aggressive, in our region? In Poland, for example, but isn’t Macron’s policy aggressive too? the first geographical identification Absolutely. And the political and economic for the vast majority of society position of France is weaker than the power would be that we belong to Central of the French voice. We also have our own Europe, which sounds neutral. interests. For example, from the point of For Hungarians, Czechs and Slovaks, this view of Hungarian interests, the enlarge- term does not have a negative coloring ei-

32 ther. The book Mitteleuropa by the German Are you convinced that the Czechs liberal Friedrich Naumann, published in see it this way, too? It seems to me 1915, cast a shadow over it for a long time. that they rather see themselves He envisaged the Central European region as an indigenous part of the West, under the rule of an integrated Germany and they see Poland as the East. of the Hohenzollern and Austro-Hun- The Czechs feel they are part of Central garian Habsburgs. For a long time, ideas Europe. It is a pan-European stereotype from this book and the concept of Central that our eastern neighbor belongs to an Europe were commonly associated with inferior class. each other. The Prague Spring was a breakthrough for Just like the Austrian politician our generation, it was then that I realized Klemens von Metternich, who that there was no other way, but to act once said that Asia began behind together. I remember though that in the his garden. In your opinion, 1970s in Czechoslovakia or Poland hardly does Central Europe have any anyone was interested in understanding specific features, or perhaps it is what Central Europe meant. In 1976 I was a purgatory—no longer Eastern happy when I got my hands on the Parisian hell, but not yet Western heaven? journal Kultura. I finally found Polish We—Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles— thought about the region! We started to have an inferiority complex. This is a shared promote the concept of Central Europe in feature. Being aware of our shared inferior- our generation even before Kundera, but ity complex can liberate us from it. We have he was the one who gave it an internation- been affected by a tragic history, and we al currency. should be aware of shared traumas. The Prague Spring was a breakthrough for our Sometimes we succumb to megalo- generation, it was then that mania. Do you know that according I realized that there was to a recent OKO.press survey, 74% no other way, but to act of Poles believe that it was they together. who suffered the most out of all the So to return to your question: yes, the nations of the world? More than inhabitants of the Visegrad countries see Jews, Armenians or Russians. themselves as part of Central Europe. Hungarians think the same. And I hear They understand that this is not West- from the Slovenian intelligentsia that it ern Europe, but it is not Eastern Europe was the Slovenians who suffered the most. either. We need to get out of this trap of thinking

33 that we are the ones who have suffered the else in this way. In Hungary, we do not most. Every country of Central and East- have experts on the Visegrad countries. ern Europe had its share of terrible times. It is our fault, and the problem is not in We—Hungarians, Czechs, Berlin or Paris, but in us. Slovaks, Poles—have an inferiority complex. I would risk a claim that Poles would This is a shared feature. not be able to name a single date from Being aware of our shared the history of Slovakia apart from the inferiority complex can 1989 breakthrough, and from the his- liberate us from it. tory of Hungary they would perhaps name 1956, although I am not sure... You said that the West treats us as ...No, they certainly know about 1956. worse than them. However, how can they see us differently if we ...and from the history of ourselves feel worse, if we share Czechoslovakia only 1968. We their point of view? We demand more were talking about Central Europe, from them than from ourselves. and only three hundred years ago, You are right. We think about ourselves ei- before the Northern War, Europe ther too much or too little. We lack balance. was divided not into Eastern and Western Europe, but into Northern And what should we do about it? and Southern Europe—for ex- There is no prescription. But it is worth ample, Poland belonged to the starting by getting to know our neighbors, “better” Northern Europe. Is and we have failed in that for the past there a return to this division? thirty years. We recently organized a camp No. In his book Inventing Eastern Europe, for translators and provided them with Larry Wolf describes how French Enlight- excellent conditions. But we were unable enment thinkers invented a second, inferi- to recruit even three Hungarian-Czech or Europe – Eastern Europe. The West had translators. Everyone is focusing only on to create the East, because everyone needs English. A friend of mine told me about his someone inferior to feel superior to. There student defending his doctoral disserta- is a division between the South and the tion on democratic changes in Czecho- North, but only within Western Europe. slovakia after 1989. It turned out that this But the East has not always produced Hungarian doctoral student based his bad associations. An interesting feature work on sources in English. It is impossible of the history of Hungarian thought was to understand Czechs, Slovaks or anyone that after the First World War many of our

34 intellectuals said that Hungary was not It is sad that the main thing uniting the elites part of Western Europe, but of Central of Central European countries is a negative and Eastern Europe. It was the opinion of attitude towards refugees, which they focus the composer Béla Bartók, for example, on only instead of dealing with long-term who started to learn Romanian at that projects such as transport or education. time. He was convinced of the deep affin- ity between the cultures of Central and And if we catch up with the West Eastern Europe. economically or politically, will the It is sad that the main thing concept of Central Europe be exhaust- uniting the elites of Central ed and disappear? European countries is a Cultural or mental differences will remain. negative attitude towards It’s not just about an inferiority complex refugees, which they focus and catching up. on only instead of dealing with long-term projects Professor Jerzy Kłoczowski such as transport or claimed that in the area that he education. roughly defined as the Habsburg lands and the Polish-Lithuanian During the economic crisis a decade Commonwealth there was a civili- ago, some people announced a return zation of the European frontier. to the intra-European North-South In a way, he was right. But our common axis, where the North was to be the Central European cultural code is not be- countries doing well. In this way, ing studied, and instead we are resorting Poland found itself in the “superior” to stereotypes. camp for a while. And then the migration crisis came and doubts whether we still had the East and the West were dispelled.

CSABA GYÖRGY KISS is a Hungarian literary scholar, cultural historian, university professor, lecturer at a number of Central European universities. Co-founder of the Hungarian Democratic Forum in 1987. The interview was possible courtesy of the International Cultural Centre in Kraków. | Photo: International Cultural Centre ASPEN.REVIEW PAVOL KOSNÁČ The Rise of AYLP PARAMILITARY CEE Paramilitaries PURPOSE

Aspen Young in CEE Leaders

The formation of paramilitary groups can have both positive and negative effects. There is no reason for an automatic alarm if one emerges—but there is always a reason for caution.

A paramilitary group is any group, that is not a proper military unit, but has the culture and organization of one. The checklist of what constitutes it is long, containing points such as military ranks and hierarchy, equipment, training methods and mimicking of other elements of the military. The two most important, however, are culture and organizations. Gaining weapons is relatively easy, and even training can be obtained in a matter of weeks to months, but culture and organization is what makes or breaks a paramilitary group.

36 Aspen.Review/ParamilitaryCEE Some of the most famous paramilitary groups in CEE were People’s Militias affiliated with the Communist Party, arguably a negative example, or elements of Czechoslovak Sokol or Polish Strzelec, that formed under- ground units fighting the Nazis. This was a positive role, I would argue. The revival of Strzelec and other paramilitary groups in Poland since 2014 was handled well by Polish authorities and became an asset that is slowly being integrated into the national defense infrastructure. The situation in other parts of CEE is more complicated, and the outcome may not be so positive. The formation of paramilitary groups can therefore have both positive and negative effects. There is no reason for an automatic alarm if one emerges—but there is always a reason for caution. When it happens, the first point of action of anyone responsible should always be to know why it happened, and where its leadership and membership stand when it comes to motivations, loyalties and values.

Reasons for the Emergence There is no unified theory or typology when it comes to the reasons why such groups emerge. There is also no single reason that can explain this phenomenon. What I will describe are the reasons me and my colleagues came across when studying historical records, contemporary reports and combining it with our own experience. Capturing zeitgeist is uneasy and doing so for CEE is further complicated by the fact that the western civilizational context must be adjusted for the post-communist past and often with a heavy dose of nostalgia.

1. Circumstantial Circumstantial reasons are an umbrella term for individual and local variables that influenced the emergence of a concrete paramilitary group. These may be, for example, a wave of violent crime in the area, or a deliberate political project. A massive migration crisis, such as in 2015/2016, frightened a great number of people and contributed to the revival of some groups in Hungary and the Balkans. The war in Ukraine greatly contributed to the emergence and growth of paramilitary groups in Poland.

37 AYLP Those variables are random. It is always a good idea, however, to ask PARAMILITARY at least 3 questions, when assessing the circumstantial reasons. The first one is about the leader—is it his influence that started and sustained the whole group, making it a one man show? Is his high motivation and personality the main force that drives the emergence of this group? This is the shared case in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, where paramilitary groups rely on the strong persona of their leaders. Second, we investigated the possible existence of a paramilitary tradition in the area—if there is one, then it can be much more frequent as is the case in Poland. In Slovakia, if the leader is gone, the group would probably crumble. In Poland, it is more about the tradition that sustains these groups. And the third and most important one—is there a war going on? Because war changes everything. In peace time, joining a paramilitary group can be a lifestyle choice, and possibly an uncommon one. Motivations can be unclear. In wartime, it can often be a very rational and pragmatic decision to have a paramilitary group around. Ukrainian oligarchs could tell.

2. Zeitgeist Circumstantial reasons describe variables on the individual and local level. Zeitgeist, or the ‘spirit of the times’, attempts to describe variables on a sociocultural, political, and indeed a historical level. It is an attempt to capture the atmosphere of society, the dominant cultural influences and counter-cultural reactions. You can picture the relationship between circumstantial reasons and zeitgeist reasons as a relationship between the weather and the climate. Both influence each other, both change—one daily, the second generationally—and both matter. Surveys indicate plummeting trust in all traditional authorities, whether this be the state, science, the church or the media. If there are no trustworthy authorities in society, anxiety and insecurity grows. Capturing zeitgeist is uneasy and doing so for CEE is further complicated by the fact that the western civilizational context must be adjusted for the post-communist past and often with a heavy dose of nostalgia. I am not far enough in my research and my tour of interviews with CEE historians, politicians, social scientists and philosophers is far from over to provide a

38 comprehensive description, but I am far enough to identify three concrete fragments of zeitgeist that have the most prominent influence amongst members of paramilitary groups, and can be consistently found across all those I met across CEE. First is the speed of change. The world is changing, and the change is so fast no one can keep up—the best analysts have no idea what effects the massive technologically and socially co-dependent change will bring. We do not know what fully digitalized societies will do to us, or what truly individualist, universal income providing societies with no overarching narrative will do; none of this has precisely existed. Part of society welcomes it as an amazing opportunity, the other part as a potential mortal threat. As we know, tension between these two tendencies in society are universal. And members of paramilitaries in CEE are predominantly from the more cautious part of the spectrum. They are skeptical about the rapid change and would prefer if it would be slower and more gradual. They view their membership as a partial insurance against potential harmful outcomes of uncontrolled and rampant change, since they gain a community of friends that feel the same and can teach them how to be more self-sufficient. The second one is the crisis of trustworthiness in traditional authorities. Surveys indicate plummeting trust in all traditional authorities, whether this be the state, science, the church or the media. If there are no trustworthy authorities in society, anxiety and insecurity grows. Social capital—and more generally social cohesion and cooperation—is based on mutual trust inside a group. This is the case whether it be the size of an elementary school class or the size of a country. As Robert Putnam has demonstrated in his book Bowl- ing Alone, when mutual trust plummets, so does social cohesion and cooperation. The boom of alternative media, alternative currencies and generally the growth of movements trying to build parallel societies is just a symptom of the mutual trust crisis. Members of CEE paramilitaries generally share the feeling that current authorities are not particularly trustworthy, and that social cohesion is falling apart. This is one of the main reasons why the question of refugees is so sensitive. They believe it is only rational to create their own groups full of people that can be trusted. And finally—theextreme moralization of differences in opinion.There is a large social and cultural rift across the entire West. If one follows the media with a more leftist and liberal scope like The Guardian, NYT, Respekt mag-

39 AYLP azine or Denník N it seems that the forces of freedom, liberty and human PARAMILITARY rights are clashing with the forces of bigotry, darkness, patriarchy and op- pression. The more conservative and right-leaning sources—The Telegraph, The Atlantic, Reflex magazine or Postoj report that the powers of reason and stability stand against the forces of chaos, decadence, economic irresponsi- bility and dangerous utopic social engineering. And both claim the other one wants to destroy either culture or nature. The boom of alternative media, alternative currencies and generally the growth of movements trying to build parallel societies is just a symptom of the mutual trust crisis. What these media report on is differences in the perspective on what values they hold, which of those they believe are in danger, and what threatens them. This is completely legitimate—different people prioritize different values and fight over the hierarchy of values. Should we prioritize Mercy or Justice? This is a common dilemma of the justice system. Both values are considered good and valuable. The trouble starts, when some groups state that the values of other groups are not values at all and should be excluded and discarded. This is where a possibility for pragmatic debate ends. Most members of CEE paramilitaries feel that the communal values of loyalty, patriotism, self-sacrifice, common decency or survival of a local way of life are under attack from the urban cosmopolitan elite living in a glo- balist culture with an individualist mindset. And this elite does not demand prioritization of their values, but outright claims that the values they hold so dear are not values at all. That they are immoral or outright evil anach- ronisms of a cruel and unjust past and should be abolished. And those who hold them are either bad, mad or sad, and should be retrained or restrained. The reaction is, obviously, outrage. In my experience, this position is the the chief reason behind the growth of anti-system tendencies and growing anger and frustration in society.

3. Human Nature and Psychological Traits Everyone is different. But, in some ways, every individual is also the same. We are all Homo Sapiens and thus share genetic material. This means there are certain generalizations that are plausible. Some are obvious—

40 in general, we have two legs, two arms and one head. But we also share mental traits that can be found cross-culturally. We call them the anthro- pological universals. There are several, but the one that is important for this study is tribal mentality. We are all tribal. We are happier, healthier and live longer if we are part of a tribe. Being part of a tribe is so deeply pleasurable, that if there is no tribe around, we create one. Sport clubs, religious organizations, professional associations, political parties—they are all outcome of our genetically inherited and neurologically wired love for tribal community. Another fact that has emerged from the last decade of cognitive and neurological study of human behavior is that humans are not born with a blank-slate mind. Our behavior and personality are only partially influenced by our upbringing and education (some 50-70%). The rest is genetic, inherited, and formed in advance of experience. We know that character traits like optimism or pessimism, neuroticism and openness to experience are inherited. This does not mean it is unmalleable. It means, however, that everyone has certain predispositions, and everyone’s inclinations can be formed, but not completely erased or empowered. As it turns out, caution about the speed of social change is inherited. Anxiety levels are caused by insecurity as well. Both are evolutionary mechanisms that should boost our ability to identify threats, cooperate and survive. To put it simply—some people were born more cautious, which predisposes them to prefer social arrangements with lower risk levels involved. They therefore instinctively oppose anything that increases the risk—and as you can see in the zeitgeist chapter, we live in times which give the more cautious people a proper headache. CEE paramilitaries seem to consist mostly of these people. Some people were born more cautious, which predisposes them to prefer social arrangements with lower risk levels involved. They therefore instinctively oppose anything that increases the risk. Personal interviews with members revealed that the main individual motivations to join paramilitary organizations are purpose and adventure. Purpose is a longing to be part of something bigger than oneself. Adventure is a longing for challenges where one can overcome risky obstacles that will help one prove oneself, gain a reputation and grow in competence. Members agree

41 AYLP that their group is providing them with plenty of both. More research will be PARAMILITARY needed to answer if the paramilitary group was simply the only possible (or most accessible) opportunity where they could entertain their longings, or if other psychological traits are in play that make a (para)military environment more attractive than the alternatives.

Conclusion To sum up the reasons I found for the emergence of paramilitary groups in CEE: local circumstantial reasons are combined with the clash of values and crisis of purpose of present zeitgeist and the eternal needs of human nature. Those who happened to live near places where paramilitary groups originated, or happened to have friends there, and were temperamentally and value-wise prone to enjoy a more collective, purpose-oriented and ad- venturous environment often considered it beneficial to join. This is what fits the field research data the best. I do not know yet if it will fit the quantitative data as well. I may have the answer next year, when I will finish polling several paramilitary groups and a representative amount of the Slovak male population in the largest comparative survey that has ever investigated this phenomenon.

We invite alumni of the Aspen Young Leaders Program to present their projects, thoughts and inspiration in Aspen Review. Aspn.me/AYLP

PAVOL KOSNÁČ is a PhD. researcher at the Department of Political Science, Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic. He studied comparative religious studies in Bratislava, Oxford and LSE and eventually focused on overlaps between ideology, religion, violence and war. He spent the last 5 years mapping motivations and values of members of paramilitary organizations and foreign fighters in Central-Eastern Europe and Asia. He also works as a consultant for humanitarian organizations and universities, currently in Slovakia, Iraq and Thailand.

42 ASPEN.REVIEW David Alandete: JAKUB DYMEK INTERVIEW The Kremlin RUSSIA DISINFORMATION Connection SEPARATISM

There’s one thing in common in all the Kremlin foreign campaigns— except Ukraine, which is very singular in and of itself. They do not create problems for others, they only use the problems already present in the countries and societies they are planning to target. And make them bigger—says David Alandete in an interview with Jakub Dymek.

JAKUB DYMEK: Earlier this year you fronts simultaneously: one being the wrote a book about fake news and ‘classical’ means of propaganda—with disinformation strategies, so it’s outlets like RT, formerly Russia Today, an obvious question to ask: do and Sputnik as the main avenues—and you think the problem has grown algorithmic manipulation including bots, worse and demands even more troll farms, etc... The first part is done attention now than before? almost entirely by the hands of the Russian DAVID ALANDETE: Yes, I believe the year state: RT and Sputnik being paid by the 2016, when the Brexit vote took place Kremlin. The other part, the hackers, the and Donald Trump won the presidency bots, the infamous Internet Research in the US, was just the beginning, to be Agency based in St. Petersburg—not honest. But the Russian disinformation always. There are people, oligarchs campaign began, as you well know, and Putin confidantes who are keen on in 2014 in Ukraine and since then the supporting such ventures themselves. propaganda machine has become more The problem has grown bigger: it’s powerful and even better oiled. Now expanding into the Spanish-speaking the information warfare works on two world and beyond Venezuela and Cuba,

Aspen.Review/TheKremlin 43 where disinformation was rampant Foreign Affairs, refused to do so, claiming earlier. A prime example of how it is that this was supposed to be some chat seen as a problem now is the fact of new about the problems of the world, but a governments in Ecuador or Bolivia trying to NATO meeting, and not engaging in shut down RT and Sputnik... that conversation... And let me remind you, that Borrell is the man who is going Are you saying that the Spanish- to head foreign relations—as the High speaking world was somehow Representative—for the entire EU. And oblivious to the problem of this kind of this is somebody who signed an agreement propaganda and information warfare? with Russia, with Sergey Lavrov, to fight I thought about this, I thought about disinformation! Incredible, when you think it for a long time. Spain was the first about it, because Russia itself is the biggest country attacked by this, during the producer of disinformation. Catalan independence crisis of 2017. Borrell is the man who Naturally, Spain usually leads the way is going to head foreign for Latin American countries, acting as relations—as the High the early adopter—but in this case Spain Representative—for the was inefficient and slow when it came entire EU. And who signed to fighting disinformation. The lack of an agreement with Russia, initiative had made Latin American with Sergey Lavrov, to fight countries more vulnerable and now disinformation. they’re learning the hard way. During one of the anniversary meetings for Traditionally however, at least from NATO recently, here in Washington, there our Central European perspective, was this conference—and the US takes it is regarded as common sense that this problem very seriously, as you know, there’s a great deal of anti-Amer- they’ve made RT and Sputnik register as icanism in Latin America... So foreign agents... one would think that the bigger receptiveness towards the Russian Basically what Kremlin de- agenda is not all that surprising. Or manded of many Western is that an oversimplified view? organizations previously... It is an oversimplification... Radical ...and Mike Pompeo in a closed meeting governments from the left often aren’t that wanted to talk specifically about Latin radical when in power. The real problem is America and Russian meddling there. not that the left is cozying up to Russia, but And Josep Borrell, Spanish Minister of the authoritarian and dictatorial nature of

44 the regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. Yes, punishable by prison and is regarded as anti-Americanism is a thing of the left in a very serious crime, but where Russia Latin America and Spain, on the left, but welcomes separatism warmly is in other the transatlantic link and ties to the United countries... States prevail over the sentiment in some segments of the population of Spanish- So you’re saying that what Russia speaking countries. doesn’t want at home it tries to Europe faces two primary foster outside its own borders? threats today: radicalism Europe faces two primary threats today: and separatism. The latter radicalism (in the form of both far-right is stronger than you would and far-left parties) and separatism. The think. Kremlin remembers latter is stronger than you would think. how big of a danger Kremlin remembers how big of a danger separatism in Europe separatism in Europe was in the past: look was in the past. not only at the Catalan question but the That being said, of course anti-americanism Basque country or Corsica in the not so and hostility towards the West is one of the distant past... basic tenets of Russia’s propaganda. It is not that they do not like America, it is that How did you first come up with the America is presented as the root of all evil idea that foreign bodies might support that is occurring in the world today. And Catalan independence in Spain? myself, as somebody who has written a lot When I worked for my previous paper, about RT and Sputnik, I was also smeared “El Pais” in Spain, we used data tools to and attacked by them. And what was their monitor what stories were getting the chief insult? That somebody who disagrees most traction on-line. Surprisingly for us, with the Russian narrative and their it oftentimes turned out it wasn’t even propagandistic goals must be paid by the Spanish papers or Spanish sources that were Americans and is surely, if not a CIA asset, mostly shared and commented on when somebody on the American payroll. it came to the Catalan referendum—RT and Sputnik were more successful in terms Coming back to your native Spain, of readership, likes and shares on social you’ve written a lot about what is platforms than we were. And I’m talking perceived to be Russian involvement about the largest newspaper in Spain and in in the Catalan referendum... the Spanish-speaking world in general! Our You know what’s really interesting researchers helped us discover that and we about this is that in Russia, separatism is quickly noticed the outrageous, false, anti-

45 journalistic headlines that were making when they don’t like what they write about these pieces of content go viral. Like “why them—with Trump that has changed, but is NATO bombing Madrid” or “How this is how it was, always—and this is how many countries will recognize Catalan Russia does it. independence?” Many of the supposed links were revealed However, many democratic pundits just recently, in late 2019, when two and politicians in the US, where you judges in courts in Spain, in Madrid and live now, are compounding all the in Barcelona, independently revealed that mistakes and failures of the party two Russian spies connected to the Skripal since 2016 and Hillary Clinton’s poisoning in the UK were present in Spain ultimately doomed campaign into during the time of the referendum and in onebig ‘Russia intrigue’—is it really turn Catalan separatists visited Moscow to that simple? Do you consider this a offer recognition that Crimea was Russian. problem, when genuine concerns And you know what the first fake-news about disinformation and infor- story about Catalan independence was? mation warfare are important only That—it was pushed by Sputnik in 2016— insofar as they help explain why “the independent Catalan government will the democratic, centrist parties recognize that Crimea is Russia”. and politicians lost so many important races in recent years? What was the reaction to I disagree. It’s true that the Robert your stories initially? Both in Mueller investigation didn’t find enough Spain and internationally. evidence to prove Donald Trump had From the Catalan independence colluded, but at the same time, Robert movement, furious, from Russia furious, Mueller’s investigation produced furious all over. And for me it was proof arguably the most damning evidence that I was right. From threats, intimidation, against Russia that was ever published! mentioning my family, it seems all the Also, it has indicted about thirty Russian obvious stuff, but the intensity of this was nationals in connection to not one, but awful. It is said, when you don’t have any two, disinformation campaigns. So there’s arguments to defend yourself against a a consensus in Washington that there claim, you don’t attack the claim, but the were Russians meddling in American source. It happened here—not attacking my elections. paper or my employers, but me personally. As to the politicization of the concept... I It is only in authoritarian regimes that the also disagree. I think when Trump leaves politicians attack the journalist personally office, everybody in Washington, even

46 his own party, will agree that Russia had I need to ask you about the a lot to do with Trump’s election. It’s a co-conspirators on this issue, big fact. They don’t do it now, but they will. tech companies, social media Because, come on, who traditionally platforms like Facebook and was the most critical of Russia and YouTube who are the biggest it’s meddling? It was the Republicans! disseminators of this propagan- Previously it was the Democrats, under da and arguably the culprits in Obama and Clinton, who wanted a ‘reset’ the destruction of our common with Russia. I don’t think—I repeat, I do public discourse in the West? not think Republicans are lenient towards They walk a thin line. I think they are Putin, it is Trump who is not towing the aware of these accusations and they take party line. Trump’s good relationship with the problem seriously. I love what Twitter Putin is the problem here. is doing with removing the political ads and not allowing them on the platform. But, even not disputing any of Facebook is a different story, Facebook is the facts conveyed in the Mueller slower when it comes to this issue... But report, one can argue that the look at the big picture: the issue is huge, it’s Democrats overplayed their card, basically the same old free speech versus saying Trump himself is a Russian regulation debate. And even the EU has not asset? This certainly backfired. taken a clear stance on the issue yet, there There’s one thing in common in all the are different approaches to regulation of Kremlin foreign campaigns—except information and media. Ukraine, which is very singular in itself. They do not create problems for others, But you do see the irony in the fact they only use the problems already present that Russia Today or Sputnik, who in the countries and societies they are you mention as hostile actors here, planning to target. And make them bigger. wouldn’t have a single-digit-per- Hillary wasn’t a great candidate, she had cent of their reach if it wasn’t for her problems, and the Russians decided to American companies like Facebook give Trump a hand, help him a little, and so and Twitter and YouTube? they did. I agree with you in that Democrats It is not only about the irony of that... had many problems and they didn’t deal this is their core strategy. They take the with them as they should have. And it western, democratic, free institutions of is convenient for them to put the blame the West and turn them against democracy on Russia. But it doesn’t mean Russian and liberalism! And it’s not only the media meddling didn’t happen. we’re talking about: it’s the parties as well

47 that are being used to that end, social regulations that would harm them as citizens movements and protests. and journalists, and by these means not But let’s be honest about it, too. Social harm any foreign hostile bodies as well. And media platforms are very slow when it they act in their own self-interest, as is their comes to combating disinformation, but right, but by this they’re helping to stave off they are taking measures. RT and Sputnik this reform process which could eventually are not as prominent as they once were. curb the spread of disinformation. Steps are being taken. Let’s be honest: Social media platforms are very slow But is it some form of an arms race when it comes to combating then? Like when democracies catch- disinformation, but they are up, and the platforms catch-up, the taking measures. RT and new means of propaganda are being Sputnik are not as prominent introduced and the whole cat and as they once were. mouse game is replayed from the start? Look, this is true to some extent, but let’s In light of that, are you opti- look beyond Russia for now, ok? Because it mistic about the future of the is not only Russia who is doing it. legacy of (traditional) media? It’s more complicated than that: media is Of course it isn’t. more than tradition, work, integrity and a And in America there’s these alt-right figures business model combined. But in the most like Mike Cernovich and Jack Posobiec... simplistic of terms: media are not going to disappear, they’re going to be more …he’s half-Polish actually! important than ever. But they’re going …who are extremely pro-Trump bloggers through a difficult, destructive process of and Internet personas, who lobby the public transformation, which is going to take time. and the Congress not to put in place any

DAVID ALANDETE is a United States Correspondent of the Spanish newspaper ABC. Previously he was the Managing Editor at Spain’s leading daily El País and a correspondent for the newspaper in the Middle East and the United States. In 2017, Alandete assembled and led an investigative team that covered the Russian meddling campaign in the Catalan independence crisis and the Italian elections, among other governance crises. He currently researches and monitors the spread of disinformation targeted at Latin America and the Hispanic population in the United States. His most recent book is “Fake news: la nueva arma de destrucción masiva: Cómo se utilizan las noticias falsas y los hechos alternativos para desestabilizar la democracia (Spanish Edition)”, 2019. | Photo: Alejandro Ruesga

48 It’s Time For Us ASPEN.REVIEW COMMENT V4 To Reclaim Our LEADERSHIP Visegrad! RULE OF LAW

It was the summer of 1989. The last summer under the totalitarian regime. By then, following twenty years of stifling ‘normalization’, the first whiffs of fresh air were beginning to be felt even in the Czech basin, cut off as it was from the rest of the world by a range of mountains that may not be the tallest but are mountains nevertheless. There was nothing normal about the ‘normalization’ that had arrived with the barrels of occupying tanks. And the fresh air was wafting in from the neighboring countries.

Luboš Palata During that summer I would prick up my ears every time Poland and Hungary, and later also East Germany, were mentioned on Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, the latter no longer jammed. In Poland and Hungary, communist rulers sat down at round tables with members of the Polish and Hungarian opposition to negotiate the handing over of power. All this seemed unbelievable to us in Czechoslovakia. We had to pinch ourselves to make sure that it was really happening: the partially free Polish election that gave Poland the first non-communist Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki; Hungary’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gyula Horn cutting the barbed wire on the border with Austria; German Democratic Republic citizens fleeing to West Germany via Lake Balaton and the Austrian border, and via West German embassies in Prague and Warsaw. And then the fall of the Wall. The Berlin Wall.

Aspen.Review/TimeToReclaim 49 COMMENT Meanwhile in Czechoslovakia change seemed to be slow in coming. V4 People took heart and drew hope and faith from following the events in War- saw, Budapest, Leipzig and East Berlin. But after November 17, change came at a dizzying pace. People used to say that what had taken ten years in Poland and ten months in Hungary happened in Czechoslovakia in ten days. And although this may be somewhat simplified, it was not far from reality. One reason why all this was possible was that we were aware of each other. What made it possible was Polish-Czech Solidarity, a series of encounters between Czech and Polish dissidents on tracks around Sněžka mountain on the border between the two countries. This enabled the leaders of the Czech Velvet Revolution to learn from the mistakes and slip-ups as well as the achievements of Poland’s Solidarity. Similarly, they were aware of the obstacles faced by the Hungarian opposition during round-table discussions. And we all saw the momentous events unfold in what was, by then, a slowly disin- tegrating German Democratic Republic. Even though we weren’t actually holding hands with the Poles, Hun- garians and East Germans, we did, in fact, overthrow communism together. And, subsequently, we strove jointly for the speediest possible withdrawal of Soviet troops and embarked jointly on the path of joining NATO and, later, the European Union. This sense of togetherness, born in 1989, the ‘annus mirabilis’ (admit- tedly, it had been present among the Poles and Hungarians for far longer) laid the foundations for the Visegrad Three and later, after Czechoslovakia split up, the Visegrad Four. The solidarity of Visegrad was almost killed off by Czech Prime Minis- ter Václav Klaus and his Slovak counterpart, the authoritarian Vladimír Mečiar. But solidarity returned to Central Europe after the fall of Mečiar and Klaus. And once Slovakia found its way back to democracy, Visegrad was able to ensure that it was included in the first wave of EU enlargement and the second of NATO.

Hundreds of Thousands of Democrats in the Visegrad Four’s Streets We are now at the end of 2019. Thirty years after the ‘annus mirabilis’, Cen- tral Europe is experiencing its ‘annus horribilis’. Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, the authoritarian rulers of Hungary and Poland, have consolidated their power by applying the twisted rules of ‘sovereign democracy’

50 and ‘rule of lawlessness’. The pro-Putin Czech President Miloš Zeman has been testing the limits of constitutional order while Prime Minister Andrej Babiš, a billionaire and media mogul, has tested the resilience of Czech rule of law, the venality of journalists and the corruptibility of various parts of the electorate. These days the only place where some golden rays of democracy still shine is Slovakia, the country that had been dubbed the ‘black hole of Europe’ under Mečiar. They are as golden as the hair of the new, openly democratic, humane and pro-western President Zuzana Čaputová. But this hope came at the price of the assassination of the young journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée Martina Kušnírová… It is 2019 and in Poland and Hungary the dismantling of the rule of law and of almost every pillar of democracy continues apace. Something similar may also happen in the Czech Republic. On the anniversary of the Velvet Rev- olution, 300,000 people rallied in Prague’s Letná park, the scene of landmark demonstrations thirty years ago. They went out into the streets to call for democracy and rule of law. But no one spoke of solidarity with Warsaw or Buda- pest. No one mentioned the fact that hundreds of thousands of people in the other two capitals took part in rallies with demands similar to the Czech protesters‘ or those demonstrating in Slovakia last year. It is as if those of us here in Central Europe who have not yet given up on democracy, freedom and the rule of law were not aware, or didn’t want to be, aware of one another. It is as if we had forgotten that without solidarity we will all lose, one after the other. The solidarity of Visegrad was almost killed off by Czech Prime Minister Václav Klaus and his Slovak counterpart, the authoritarian Vladimír Mečiar.

Together against the organized crime group currently on top Those bent on destroying our free world meet, hug and share advice regularly, having formed a mutual admiration society. The current powers-that-be have transformed Visegrad into what crime investigators call ‘organized crime group’. To mark the anniversary of 17 November 1989, the Czech President held a gathering of Visegrad leaders behind the walls of the National Mu- seum, walls so thick that they didn’t let through the jeering of the pro-de-

51 COMMENT mocracy crowds outside while Hungary’s Prime Minister, ‘the Godfather’ V4 Viktor Orbán, gave a speech outlining his agenda for Central Europe. Orbán proclaimed that Central Europe, under its current leadership, has the right to treat democracy and rule of law as it sees fit. As he, Orbán, sees fit, regardless of the principles of rule of law or the principles of the European Union. He added the sinister warning that is not Central Europe that needs to fit in with the West, but the other way around. But there still is another Visegrad, quite different from Orbán’s. It is a Visegrad of people who carry banners calling for freedom and democracy, people who are not indifferent to the fact that we have lost nearly all that our defiance in 1989 had achieved. These people do not organize summits, they have no ostentatious palaces. And yet, they ought to be able to get together and show each other solidarity, support one other, draw strength from one another, and share the odd experience of small victories that do occur every now and then. Some individuals have started to show the way: Zdeněk Hřib, Gergely Karácsony and Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayors of three Visegrad capitals, Prague, Budapest and Warsaw, met during the celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The cities they run have remained bastions of pro-democracy forces in their respective countries, bastions that—in the case of Budapest—have recently been reconquered. This is a wonderful and prom- ising start and it is to be hoped that they will soon be joined by Bratislava where, in many respects, the greatest strides towards a successful salvaging of democracy have been taken. However, the only way Central Europe can win this battle and give back the tarnished image of Visegrad its original meaning is by doing it jointly. By inspiring hope and strength in one another, by showing solidarity. If we don’t do that, we are condemned to lose the battle, one after the other; the battle for a free, democratic and European future of our Central Europe. It is time to join forces to achieve this and reclaim our freedom. To reclaim a genuine Visegrad—a Visegrad that is free and democratic.

LUBOŠ PALATA is the Europe editor of the Czech daily Deník. He was reporter and commentator at the daily MF DNES the deputy editor in chief of the Slovak daily Pravda. He studied International Relationships and Political Science at Charles University.

52 ASPEN.REVIEW Jeffrey Gedmin: TOMÁŠ KLVAŇA POLITICS Less World, TRUMP PUTIN More America N ATO

Americans seem to exhibit signs of tiredness or fatigue, a notion that we have done so much and others have done relatively little. If Europe shows some strategic maturity by identifying priorities and allocating resources to them, you as a continent would help yourself and also the transatlantic ties—says Jeffrey Gedmin in an interview with Tomáš Klvaňa

TOMÁŠ KLVAŇA: How would you also the author of outsourcing Ukraine describe the current state of to the European Union, leading from European-American relations? behind on Libya and pivoting to Asia. JEFFREY GEDMIN: We need to consider Now we have the continuation of Obama several aspects. There are things that retrenchment but in a more radical, more are structural and have been happening vulgar and more extreme form. So those continuously as Europe has become less who think this began with Donald Trump dependent in some ways on the United are shortsighted and don’t see the wider States since the end of the Cold War picture. But Trump is a problem in my 30 years ago. I think that the trend of view. Whatever has been happening, American retrenchment began under he is the foot on the accelerator, the President Barack Obama. Europeans pedal in the car, and he is not a stable liked him. He was eloquent, elegant driver. He is impetuous. He is not always and cerebral. But remember that he was responsible, and sometimes he is even

Aspen.Review/LessWorld 53 reckless. Now we have a car that was responded to leadership, and we don’t going down a troublesome route already, have that leadership right now. We do not but we have a driver at the wheel who have much in the way of political leaders is not entirely responsible in my view. making a case for responsible political President Trump is an engagement in American interests. Some America first nationalist. are reluctant to call President Trump an He is not focused on isolationist, but he is an America first na- alliances as a way of tionalist. He is not focused on alliances as realizing American goals. a way of realizing American goals. He has He has an extremely narrow an extremely narrow short-term defini- short-term definition of tion of American interests. On the Dem- American interests. ocratic side, let’s see who the candidate is for the 2020 presidential election. We This can be partially ascribed to do not know it yet, but the Democrats are the fact that Europe is becoming mostly producing people who are inclined more independent, prosperous, to protectionism and will possibly practice stable and simply more of a player their own version of America First. Per- on the international stage. What is haps less vulgar and less mean spirited for your view, however, of the general sure, but I don’t know that we will revert attitude of Americans towards to where we were 15 or 20 years ago. There getting into any kind of engage- is more looking inward. It can be partially ment in Europe? Aren’t Americans reversed. Leadership can speak to the much less interested in Europe American people, it can explain individual than they were 30 years ago? difficult cases worth our attention and There is a kernel of truth to that. Amer- bring people out, but the trend is clear: less icans seem to exhibit signs of tiredness world and more America. or fatigue, a notion that we have done so much and others have done relatively lit- You’ve spent a number of years in tle. To put it in context, Iraq was a major Europe. What should Europeans debacle at one point. Afghanistan? Lots do these days to have as good of Americans say that the sacrifice was a relationship with the White clear but the result is less clear. Part of the House as is reasonably possible? American public—not all, but a signifi- You are in a difficult situation because cant part—feels fatigue in international President Trump is a difficult president. engagement defined by different things. And he was not my candidate. Here It is also true that Americans have always would be my advice to European friends.

54 Number one, stay calm and stay steady. law are concerned. As the U.S. has His rhetoric is inflammatory and provoc- played such an outsized role in ative; it’s important, I take it from you, Central Europe’s liberation, do you but stay calm and steady. Number two, it think that the special relationship is true that Europe needs to do more for between our respective countries its defense. Be calm and deliberative, but has a future, or will it be more begin working on your capabilities. It is and more subsumed under the not a one-year project, it is not a three- overall E.U.-U.S. relationship? year project, but Europe in the next five The two aspects can be true at the same to ten to fifteen years—in the context of time. We have to have a vital, rich and a robust NATO—needs to do more for its healthy relationship with the E.U., but the own defense. And number three, Europe E.U. is made up of constituent states, each needs to define its own strategic priori- one with its own distinct character and ties with China, Russia and Iran. It must personality. It is fair to say that Americans engage and help with the vibrancy of have a special place in their heart for democracies across Central and Eastern those countries that struggled and fought Europe. If you demonstrate strategic communism for decades and won their maturity by identifying priorities and freedom. It’s 30 years since the fall of the allocating resources to them, you as a Berlin Wall and the Velvet Revolution continent will not only help yourself, but and history and memory matter. The also the transatlantic ties. challenge is that we don’t unlearn history. The challenge is that we We have a generation in its late twenties don’t unlearn history. that did experience communism and it is We have a generation in the responsibility of us who remember to its late twenties that did appreciate our historical lessons. experience communism and it is the responsibility There are strains on NATO, es- of us who remember to pecially in the context of Turkey, appreciate our historical Syria and Trump. The organization lessons. seems to be in a kind of limbo. NATO has gone through different It has been 30 years since Central versions over the years. You remember Europe regained its independence when it was unofficially stated that it and started on the road to democ- was there to keep the Russians out, the racy. And it is not in the best shape Americans in and the Germans down. as far as democracy and rule of That has changed as Germany has

55 become a healthy, stable and responsi- Vladimir Putin as a leader has become ble democracy. And as you mentioned skilled at looking at our self-inflicted President Trump, his attitude, his rhetoric wounds and taking advantage of them to is not helpful, in my view. You’d almost sow division. Perhaps he’s not the cause think that based on his pronouncements, of our problems but he made it harder NATO is there to get the Americans out, for us to fix them. As far as NATO is the Russians in and keep the European concerned, there are a number of ways to Union down. He seems to have a special breathe new life into this organization. fondness for Vladimir Putin. He doesn’t care much about American leadership Do you envision that in the near and doesn’t have a great respect for the future we will be coordinating European Union, does he? I don’t think our relationships with China he’s helpful, I don’t think he has a vision more tightly, which could bring and he clearly doesn’t understand the America and Europe closer again? importance of the Alliance. There is an immense opportunity because Having said that, there are a number China poses a challenge in trade, security of things we can be talking about in the and we still care about democracy and NATO context that would be contempo- human rights in China and on China’s pe- rary, relevant and enormously helpful. riphery in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet and One is China, and the other is artificial Mongolia. China for its own commercial intelligence. We are stumbling into a purpose depends on European and North world where issues will challenge us American markets, which is a long way of across the Atlantic space, but there is an saying that if we could communicate, if opportunity to tackle them together. Let’s we could deepen the strategic dialogue, also mention Russia. It is not the Soviet and if we could find ways to work closely Union, it is not a rising power like China, together, we would have a considerably but whatever condition the country is in, higher leverage with China on all these It is not the Soviet Union, matters than if we were split. It is an it is not a rising power immense challenge and opportunity that like China, but whatever needs leadership from both sides. We condition the country is in, have differences, we compete with each Vladimir Putin as a leader other but in this strategic arena if we stick has become skilled at together we could achieve much, much looking at our self-inflicted more. I am hopeful that people will see wounds and taking that. If we allow China this open field, we advantage of them. would be at a disadvantage.

56 Speaking of Russia, it is not quite our democratic NATO allies in Central clear what the U.S. policy towards and Eastern Europe, especially Poland Russia actually is. Is it what and the Baltic countries. So if you are President Trump says, or what the getting a mixed picture, that’s because State Department and Pentagon do? we are sending a mixed picture and it is There clearly is confusion. The President confusing because the President seems of the United States, our Command- to be in one place, he is impulsive, erratic er-in-Chief, is erratic, impulsive, undis- and undisciplined, and his foreign policy ciplined and in my view friendly with a establishment by and large is NATOcen- couple of dictators. We can only speculate tric, pro-Central and Eastern European as to why. Within the American foreign and skeptical of, if not antagonistic to, policy establishment, however, the Pen- Vladimir Putin’s goals. Let’s see how this tagon, the State Department, the White works itself out. Let’s see who wins the House—meaning the National Security elections of 2020. The picture is compli- Council –, there the center of gravity is cated, unclear and often contradictory. skeptical of Russia and in solidarity with

JEFFREY GEDMIN is Editor-in-Chief of The American Interest and CEO of the TAI Group. From 2015 to 2018, he was senior adviser at Blue Star Strategies. From 2011 to 2014, Gedmin was President and CEO of the London-based Legatum Institute. Prior to joining the Legatum Institute in early 2011, Gedmin served for four years as President and CEO of Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) headquartered in Prague. Before RFE/RL, Gedmin served as President and CEO of the Aspen Institute in Berlin. He was earlier Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) in Washington, D.C and Executive Director of the New Atlantic Initiative. He is the author/editor of several books, including The Hidden Hand: Gorbachev and the Collapse of East Germany (1992). | Photo: Wikipedia ASPEN.REVIEW IVAN PREOBRAZHENSKY Moscow

POLITICS Protests and their RUSSIA PROTESTS POLICE VIOLENCE Consequences

The ruling class has taken advantage of the crisis to increase its control over society. The Kremlin has begun a new phase in the privatization of Russia, which could result in the complete liquidation of civil society.

The protests in the Russian capital in the summer of 2019 surprised not only the authorities, but also the opposition and independent candidates aspiring to run for the Moscow City Duma elections. Since the times of mayor Yuri Luzhkov, the Moscow Duma has been considered one of the weakest regional assemblies in Russia. Its powers are limited, and the executive power is concentrated in the hands of the mayor. Local governments cannot make any independent decisions. It is the town hall that decides what happens in the districts.

58 Social activists not affiliated with any parties declared, however, their willingness to participate in the elections. With the help of Alexei Navalny’s team, the district councilors created a joint system of collect- ing signatures necessary to register candidates without the support of political parties. Contrary to the expectations of the authorities, the op- positionists managed to agree on who was running in which constituency and collect the required number of signatures. As a result, the authorities had to rig the registration process in order to remove the names of the independent candidates. In Russia, a hierarchical and centralized state, activism generally starts in the capital and moves from there to the regions. This time it was different. The violation of the electoral law was so blatant that it triggered massive protests. The social base of the narrow circle of activists began to grow rapidly, and the protest was joined by representatives of various social groups—not only young people, but also visitors from other cities, as the Moscow authorities claimed. According to the available data,1 the protests were attended by representatives of various age groups, and their age distribution was approximately the same as in 2011. What had changed was the significant increase in the number of women taking part in the protests. This confirms the claim that Russian women are increasingly active in politics, also in the face of the attempts to restrict their rights.

The Regional Aspect An important factor in the summer protests in Moscow was their regional aspect. In Russia, a hierarchical and centralized state, activism generally starts in the capital and moves from there to the regions. This time it was different. Mass dissatisfaction spilled out onto the streets in the regions as early as the beginning of 2019. Yekaterinburg became the first hotbed, where people protested against plans to build St. Catherine’s Church in the city center, replacing a square in front of the Drama Theater. The second issue was the Shies settlement in the Archangelsk region, where the local population and ecologists opposed the creation of a landfill site, where waste from Moscow was to be disposed of.

Aspen.Review/MoscowProtests 59 POLITICS In Moscow, the first mass protests were not connected with politics RUSSIA and elections, but took place in defense of the journalist Ivan Golunov, against whom a criminal case was fabricated. People also protested against the arbitrary actions of the police. To prevent the protests from spreading, the authorities gave way under pressure from the demonstrators. It was precisely the regional protests and the campaign to defend Golunov that pre- pared public opinion in the capital city to protest against electoral fraud and police violence. The precedent of working together to collect signatures, in defense of illegally convicted persons, now allows them to jointly prepare for the 2021 elections and try to defend individual civil society institutions. After the police and officers of the National Guard (special operations units) began to brutally attack participants of peaceful demonstrations and rallies, appeals began to be heard even inside the ruling class not to esca- late the violence. Sergei Chemezov, an influential friend of Vladimir Putin from the KGB and head of the state corporation Rostechnologie, as well as Alexei Kudrin, the previously silent head of the state Audit Office, former- fi nance minister and an old acquaintance of Vladimir Putin, cautiously spoke against the pacification of protests. They may have been concerned about the excessive strengthening of security forces.

The Consolidation of Opposition Groups In response, the authorities shifted to a tactic of selective persecution of protesters and stepped up the fight against political opponents—pressure on civil society and the opposition increased significantly. The State Duma made an application to the executive for Deutsche Welle, as well as the Rus- sian television station Dozhd’ (Rain) and the Russian-language website Medusa registered in Latvia, to be classified as ‘foreign agents’. The Czech NGO Člověk v tísni was declared an undesirable organization. The authorities also began to liquidate disloyal non-commercial organizations—the Movement for Human Rights headed by Lev Ponomaryov was the first victim. A criminal case was launched, initiated against the Anti-Corrup- tion Foundation of the opposition activist Alexei Navalny; its offices were searched and activists detained throughout the country.

60 In November 2019, the State Duma adopted four new laws. Firstly, 1) www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/ articles/2019/09/30/812372- multi-million-dollar fines were introduced for refusal of communicator op- kak-izmenilsya-protest, Ведомости, 30 September 2019, erators such as Whatsapp or Telegram to transfer encryption keys to users’ Алексей Захаров, Александра Архипова correspondence. Fines were also imposed for refusing to transfer user data to Russia. The second act obliges all sellers to install ‘Russian cybersecuri- ty software’ on their phones, certified by the Federal Security Service. The third blow was inflicted on lawyers, who in Russia are increasingly being denied the right to practice their profession. Amendments to the Media Act were also adopted, such as extending the term ‘foreign agent’ to individual persons. The media registered as foreign agents are obliged to establish (within one month) a separate legal entity in Russia, which will be responsible for their publications (even in the case of foreign media). The 2019 protests also contributed, however, to the consolidation of activist and opposition groups. The precedent of working together to collect signatures, in defense of illegally convicted persons, now allows them to jointly prepare for the 2021 elections and try to defend individual civil society institutions. The scope for action is getting increasingly tighter. It is expected that in 2020 the authorities will make changes to electoral legislation to prevent the opposition from registering candidates. It is possible that before the 2021 elections these groups will be divided once again. The Kremlin may allow, for example, the political and social activities of moderate opposition or NGOs receiving presidential grants from Vladimir Putin’s Adminis- tration to continue, while others may be harassed with criminal prosecutions and thus forced to cease their activities. The future course of action of the Russian authorities and opposition depends on whether the potential of the protest will increase or decrease. Over the last few years, protest activity has been growing in proportion to the decline of the standard of living. For the time being, forecasts indicate that this trend is continuing.

IVAN PREOBRAZHENSKY is a political analyst, PhD of Political Sciences. He is the coordinator of the «Moscow political club» and European observer for the independent news agency “Rosbalt” and Deutsche Welle columnist. ASPEN.REVIEW MYKOLA RIABCHUK

POLITICS UKRAINE NATIONALISM POROSHENKO The City and the Myth: Making Sense of the Lviv ‘Nationalist’ Image

Lviv, with its population of about 750,000 people, is only the seventh largest city in Ukraine. In the western part of the country, however, it is the largest one, at least three times bigger than any other city in the region. This endows Lviv informally with a certain metropolitan status—as the cultural, educational and, to a certain degree, economic and political center of “Western Ukraine”.

On 4 April, shortly after the first round of Ukraine’s presidential elections, the Vice News website found a peculiar way to celebrate that event by attaching a photograph of camouflaged youngsters to the very title of a report that read: “White Nationalists from around the World Are Meeting in Finland”. There was no reference to Ukraine in the article but the text for the photograph fixed the omission. It implied that the most exemplary “white nationalists from around the world” would in all probability be “[m]embers of the right-wing National Corps [who] are marching toward the election campaign rally of Petro Poroshenko, President of Ukraine and candidate for the 2019 elections, in Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, 28 March 2019”.1

Aspen.Review/Lviv 63 POLITICS It is not the featuring of a Ukrainian far-right group that makes the UKRAINE material so peculiar (although this kind of coverage is highly inflated in the international media and too often follows the Kremlin template). The key-words in the text are “Poroshenko” and “Lviv”,—both of them tightly connected, according to the same template, to the notion of “Ukrainian nationalism”,—whatever it means and however the usage is justified. The only problem in this case was that the camouflaged people in the photograph were not marching to the Poroshenko rally to support him, as the text implied, but to obstruct and disrupt it. This was a systemic campaign carried out not only in Lviv,2 but also in Vinnytsia,3 Ivano-Frankivsk,4 Cherkasy,5 Chernihiv,6 Poltava,7 Zhytomyr8 and all around the country.9 In all other regions beyond the west, any use of Ukrainian in public was stigmatized as a sign of rural backwardness or, worse, a defiant manifestation of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism”. There was a great deal of information on this, also in English,10 so that any responsible author or editor could easily verify it and discover the real role of the far right in Poroshenko’s campaign. Vice News failed to do this—despite definitely not belonging to the Kremlin pool of propagandistic outlets. They simply internalized a common wisdom disseminated by Moscow, and this for so long and so intensively that it has been established, becoming a kind of proven fact, “scientific knowledge”, something that should not even be questioned or analyzed. It is enough to know that “Lviv”, “Poroshenko” and “the far right” match perfectly. It is “normal”, “well-known”, “indisputable”. Everybody knows it. The case illustrates the problem of unbiased, “Moscow-free”, coverage of Ukraine’s developments—too broad and complex to be covered here. It also sheds light, however, on a number of lesser issues, one of which I would like to specifically address: the inadequate understanding of Lviv and the region which are often unduly caricatured and sometimes— also unfairly—embellished and lionized.

A “Hotbed” of Nationalism Lviv, with its population of about 750,000 people, is only the seventh largest city in Ukraine. In the western part of the country, however, it is the larg-

64 est one, at least three times bigger than any other city in the region. This 1) news.vice.com/ en_us/article/qvy7vx/ endows Lviv informally with a certain metropolitan status—as the cultural, heavyweights-from-the- white-nationalist-world-will- educational and, to a certain degree, economic and political center of sev- be-bonding-in-finland-this- weekend-heres-what-they-want en oblasts, loosely subsumed under the rubric “Western Ukraine”. In fact, 2) westnews.info/news/U-Lvovi- Western Ukraine consists of four very different historical regions (Haly- Nacionalnij-Korpus-gotuyetsya- jti-do-Poroshenka.html chyna/Galicia, Volyn, Bukovyna, and Transcarpatia),—quite distinct and, 3) gordonua.com/ukr/ in some points, not particularly supportive of one other. The main common news/politics/u-vinnitsi- vidbulisja-zitknennja- feature that unites them, apart from the location, is their history, in par- politsiji-z-natsionalnimi- druzhinami-842447.html ticular their relatively late—only during WWII—incorporation into the So- 4) gordonua.com/ukr/news/ viet Union. This made them much less exposed to the crude Soviet policies localnews/pered-zustrichchju- poroshenka-z-zhiteljami- of industrialization, collectivization, and Russification, although they were ivano-frankivska-vidbulisja- sutichki-z-uchastju-natskorpusa- not fully exempt from that kind of social engineering. i-natsdruzhin-u-politsiji- povidomili-shcho-postrazhdalih- The net result of these (and some other) historical developments was nemaje-822218.html a lower level of Russification/ Sovietization, a lower loyalty to the regime 5) glavcom.ua/ news/nacionalisti-z- and a more critical stance on the part of the inhabitants toward the official nackorpusu-zyavilisya-na- mitingu-poroshenka-u- ideology and propagandistic clichés. They simply did not internalize the cherkasah-575854.html

“Sovietness” to a degree achieved further east, and were more similar 6) gordonua.com/ukr/news/ politics/de-vidrubani-ruki- in this regard to inhabitants of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia or the natskorpus-vlashtuvav-aktsiju- pid-chas-vizitu-poroshenka-v- Baltic states. The most conspicuous feature, however, that made Western chernigiv-807361.html

Ukraine strikingly different from the rest of the country and, more generally, 7) zik.ua/news/2019/03/16/ pid_chas_peredvyborchogo_ from Soviet “normalcy” in the eyes of any visitor from the east, was the mityngu_poroshenka_v_ poltavi_natsdruzhyny_ predominance or at least free use of Ukrainian in the urban environment. vlashtuvaly_1530665

In all other regions beyond the west, any use of Ukrainian in public 8) hromadske.radio/ news/2019/03/11/ was stigmatized as a sign of rural backwardness or, worse, a defiant predstavnyky-nackorpusu- pryyshly-na-vystup- manifestation of “Ukrainian bourgeois nationalism”. Western Ukrainian poroshenka-u-zhytomyri cities embodied the latter, in popular beliefs, legends and anecdotes, 9) gordonua.com/ukr/news/ politics/biletskij-na-mitingi- but also in all kinds of Soviet propaganda. The guerrilla resistance to the poroshenko-mi-prihodimo- zapitati-u-nogo-shcho-z- Soviets after WWII only strengthened the staunchly “nationalistic” image svinarchukami-shcho-zi- skotami-jaki-v-normalnij- of the Western Ukrainian region, with the city of Lviv placed naturally at krajini-sili-b-dovichno-8478- 48.html the very center of that myth. 10) www.Kievpost.com/ The Russo-Ukrainian war and the ensuing civic mobilization have multimedia/photo/national- corps-rally-demand-arrest-of- substantially changed the notion of “nationalism” in Ukraine. Back in alleged-corruption-suspects- photos 2005, only 27% of respondents in a nationwide poll saw it as an ideology 11) razumkov.org.ua/uploads/ that “aims primarily at the transformation of Ukraine into a strong state, journal/ukr/NSD161-162_2016_ ukr.pdf with a high international reputation and decent level of citizen’s well- being”. As many as 41% assessed it negatively—as an ideology, that “splits

65 POLITICS society into ethnic Ukrainians and ‘non-Ukrainians’ and strives to restrict UKRAINE the rights of the latter group”. (14% defined nationalism neutrally, as a peculiar historical phenomenon that used to exist in Western Ukraine in the 1940s-1950s but which was passé today; 18% declined to respond). In 2015, the same pollsters11 found the opposite attitudes: 47% defined nationalism positively, as a useful transformative force, and only 24% held the earlier negative view. Remarkably, a positive view of “nationalism” prevailed, albeit minimally, even in Ukraine’s East (38.4 vs. 37.7) and Donbas (37.4 vs. 32.2). The cliché is especially popular in the international media that refers recurrently to Ukraine’s “nationalistic West” as counter- opposed to the presumably “pro-Russian East”. This did not impact, however, the general view of Western Ukraine, and Lviv in particular, as the hotbed of Ukrainian “nationalism”, as something exceptional,—not necessarily negative but still abnormal. The cliché is especially popular in the international media that refers recurrently to Ukraine’s “nationalistic West” as counter-opposed to the presumably “pro-Russian East”.12 In fact, the binary opposition is patently false insofar as the two key adjectives that make it, do not match one other. The true antonym to “nationalistic” should be either “internationalist” or “cosmopolitan”, but certainly not “pro-Russian” as it belongs to an apparently different semantic field. The proper antonym for it should be either “anti-Russian” or “pro-Ukrainian” (“pro-Western”, “pro- European”, etc.). The false binary opposition is tricky because it manipulates not just semantics, but reality. It implies that being “pro-Russian” or else, Russian-speaking, absolves anybody from being “nationalistic”,13 while being “nationalistic” is a primordial and perhaps genetically determined feature of Ukraine’s West. The consequences of these mental short-cuts and semantic manipulations are dramatic since they facilitate many more distortions—as was briefly exemplified at the beginning of this article. Nationalism is too charged and ambiguous a word to be used arbitrarily, especially in reports about a country which most people know nothing about (or, worse, know something from poisonous sources such as RT and associates).

66 The primary goal of this essay is to therefore take a closer look at so- 12) E.g., “Dnipropetrovsk stands on the fault line called “West Ukrainian” nationalism, its specific manifestations in the between the pro-Russian east of the country and city of Lviv, its impact on people’s behavior and value systems and on their anti-Russian, nationalistic west” (Olga Rudenko, In perception of other regions and self-perception within the country. I would East Ukraine, fear of Putin, anger at Kiev. USA Today, 14 draw on available sociological data which are quite rich but which come March 2014, https://www. usatoday.com/story/news/ from different, often methodologically incompatible, surveys. In most cases, world/2014/03/14/ukraine- crimea-referendum/6319183). they cover the entire region of Western Ukraine, occasionally Galicia (Lviv, “There is a genuine divide in Ukraine between a nationalist- Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts), but very rarely Lviv itself. Some modest dominated west and a Russian-speaking east” (Dovid extrapolation of data is needed, therefore, so that the entire region (Galicia or Katz, The Hushed-Up Hitler Factor in Ukraine. Portside, the whole of Western Ukraine) serves as a rough sociological proxy for the city. 16 August 2014, https:// portside.org/2014-08-21/ hushed-hitler-factor-ukraine- and-neo-nazi-brigade-fighting- What is in the Data? pro-russian-separatists); “The pro-European outlook that The everyday use of Ukrainian in public might be the most conspicuous fits so easily in the country’s west, where Ukrainians are sign of “nationalism” in the city of Lviv in the eyes of visitors from the east nationalists, angers the ethnic Russians who people the (either from Kiev, Minsk, or Moscow) but it certainly does not look like industrial east” (Mara Bellaby, Ukraine Soccer United Divided that in the eyes of the people who did not internalize Soviet “normalcy” Nation. Associated Press, 28 June 2006). which deemed any public conversation in Ukrainian (Belarusian, Moldo- 13) A modified form of the van, Kazakh, etc.) beyond a village, bazaar or Writers’ Union a deplora- same cliché absolves all Russian-speakers from being ble deviation. Mass attachment to the native language is certainly not a “nationalists”, while equating implicitly “nationalism” unique Western Ukrainian feature, but is quite typical for most nations. with speaking Ukrainian: “Zelensky’s presidency could The surveys demonstrate, that even in heavily Russified Eastern Ukraine, reduce the country’s historical fission between nationalist two thirds of the respondents claimed Ukrainian as their “native lan- west and Russian speaking east”. (Asia Times, 5 April guage” and almost half of them speak it at home. Much fewer of them, 2019, https://www.asiatimes. com/2019/04/article/moscow- however, dare to use it in public, this being a clear sign of an unfriendly left-friendless-in-ukrainian- presidential-race/). Or: “For social environment that still supports and reproduces discursively a su- years, the story of Ukrainian elections was divided between premacist colonial convention. Western Ukrainians did not internalize it, the Ukrainian-speaking and nationalist west of the country, thus the region remains the only part of Ukraine where the number of ur- and the Russian-speaking south and east”. (Thomas banites speaking Ukrainian at home and in public is the same.14 de Waal, What Is at Stake in Ukraine’s Election? Carnegie This might be a sign of “nationalism” since any resistance to Endowment for International Peace, 21 March 2019; the dominant (imperial, in this case) convention requires some sort of https://carnegieendowment. org/2019/03/21/what-is-at- “nationalistic” mobilization. This is, however, a rather defensive “nationalism” stake-in-ukraine-s-election- pub-78659). aimed at protection of its national “normalcy” against the imperial normalcy 14) razumkov.org.ua/uploads/ imposed from the outside. It might look abnormal and deviant to Easterners journal/ukr/NSD169-170_2017_ ukr.pdf who have internalized the imperial view of all things Ukrainian as inferior. It 15) ratinggroup.ua/files/ is essentially, however, quite a normal reaction, rather typical for most nations ratinggroup/reg_files/rg_ patriotyzm_082019.pdf exposed to an external, either real or sometimes imaginary, threat.

67 POLITICS While the free use of Ukrainian in the public space is the most UKRAINE conspicuous feature that makes Lviv and other Western Ukrainian cities notably different from their Eastern Ukrainian counterparts, there are many more dissimilarities, less obvious but statistically significant and variously exemplified by sociological surveys. Most of them are not necessarily proof of “nationalism” but certainly proof of a stronger national identity and higher concern with identity-related issues. For instance, as many as 86% of ‘westerners’ declare themselves “patriots of Ukraine”, according to a recent opinion poll, while the national average is 83%.15 By the same token, 89% of the respondents in Western Ukraine declare support for national independence (while Ukraine’s average is 71%, with 20% undecided);16 65% declare they are ready to defend their country with arms or in auxiliary as volunteers (the national average is 50%);17 72% identify themselves primarily as citizens of Ukraine (the national average is 65%);18 84% of respondents in the Lviv oblast feel proud to be citizens of Ukraine (the national average is 69%).19 The surveys demonstrate, that even in heavily Russified Eastern Ukraine, two thirds of the respondents claimed Ukrainian as their “native language” and almost half of them speak it at home. The apparently stronger national identity of the region also determines its stronger pro-Western (primarily pro-EU and pro-NATO) orientation,20 as well as support for a set of values deemed “European”— democracy,21 liberalism,22 free market23 and civic participation.24 The differences between the Western and Eastern regions are not that high, since all of them share a rather low East European civic/political culture and, to a different degree, legacies of Sovietism. Nonetheless, they are statistically discernible and quite stable. The connection between identity (nationalism) and pro-Western orientation (set of values) is determined by a peculiar development of the Ukrainian national project since its very inception in the first half of the nineteenth century. The main challenge for Ukrainian nation-builders has been emancipation from the Russian empire that did not recognize Ukrainians as a separate nationality. This entailed an even more difficult task—mental emancipation from the imagined East Slavonic/Orthodox Christian community that stemmed symbolically from

68 the Kievan Rus but was completely appropriated by Muscovy. The West 16) dif.org.ua/article/ gromadska-dumka-ukraini- became for Ukrainians an alternative center to identify with and acquire na-28-rotsi-nezalezhnosti- derzhavi the much-needed symbolic and discursive resources to withstand imperial 17) www.razumkov.org.ua/ dominance. The West represented modernity much more than Russia but upload/Identi-2016.pdf also required the acceptance of western values, at least at the normative 18) ratinggroup.ua/files/ ratinggroup/reg_files/rg_ level. This made Ukrainians “Westernizers by default”: they either had to patriotyzm_082019.pdf give up their nationalistic ambitions and dissolve in a greater Russian nation, 19) ratinggroup.ua/files/ ratinggroup/reg_files/ or tame their nativist, deeply ingrained Slavic-Orthodox anti-Westernism rg_40000_portraits_of_the_ regions_122018_press.pdf and adopt (unpalatable sometimes) Western cultural and political patterns.25 20) ratinggroup.ua/files/ The other interesting manifestation of the stronger national identity in ratinggroup/reg_files/ rg_40000_portraits_of_the_ Western Ukraine is a higher level of optimism expressed by the inhabitants regions_122018_press.pdf of the region. As many as 87% of Westerners believe that Ukraine could 21) When asked to choose between a “democratic system overcome all problems and challenges (Ukraine’s average is 81%); 63% of of government or prosperous economy”, 54% of respondents Westerners believe Ukraine is developing in the right direction (16% claim in Lviv mentioned democracy as more important, while 31% bet the opposite, while the national average is 51% vs. 23%); 42% of Westerners on economy. This is the highest level of support for democracy believe there were more positive things than negative since independence in Ukraine. Generally, all West Ukrainian cities occupy the (10% claim the opposite, while the Ukrainian average is 26% vs. 23%); upper part of this rating, while the South-eastern cities are 39% of Westerners look to the future with optimism and 57% with hope mostly at the bottom. https:// www.iri.org/sites/default/ (Ukraine’s average is 36% and 56% respectively);26 78% of respondents in the files/2018-3-22_ukraine_poll.pdf

Lviv oblast view themselves as happy or relatively happy people (Ukraine’s A few months earlier, in a similar survey, 67% of average is 70%, with the highest results, again, in the west).27 respondents in Western Ukraine defined democracy Although Western Ukraine is the poorest part of the country (in as the most desirable political system for the country terms of average salaries, personal income, and regional GDP per capita),28 (the national average was 56%). http://razumkov.org. most respondents consider themselves “middle class”, and assess the ua/uploads/socio/2017_ Politychna_kultura.pdf financial situation of their families much better than respondents in other In 2015, at the height of oblasts. In the city of Lviv, only 6% of respondents claim that they do not military activity in Donbas, 56% of respondents in Western have enough money for food, and only 14% contend that they can barely Ukraine still defined democracy as the most desirable political afford anything besides the most basic stuffs (both figures are among the system for the country (the national average at the time was lowest in Ukraine). Three quarters of the inhabitants of Lviv (75%—the 51%). http://www.razumkov. org.ua/upload/Identi-2016.pdf highest number in Ukraine) fall into the middle income category: they claim they have enough money for food, clothes, shoes and other basic expenditures but need to save or borrow money for purchasing more expensive things. The upper-income categories (people who can afford everything or almost everything) are statistically insignificant in Ukraine, and fluctuate everywhere, including Lviv, around 4%. Neither income from the shadow economy nor remittances from abroad can explain

69 POLITICS this paradox persuasively enough, especially if we take into account the UKRAINE respective data from Kiev (64%)—a city which is much better-off, with the average salaries almost three times higher than in Lviv.29 As in the case of the higher social optimism, the patriotic mobilization might be the main reason for an apparently exaggerated assessment of personal well-being in Lviv and elsewhere in Western Ukraine—more or less in line with the sarcastic remark of the popular Lviv artist Volodymyr Kostyrko: “Before 1991, Galicians had poignantly felt two things— poverty and Russification. Now, they feel three things, happily—poverty, Russification and great joy from national independence”.30 All the examined data do not say much about the stronger “nationalism” of Western Ukraine but rather confirm the higher level of patriotism of Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians who make up the absolute majority in the region. In ethnic terms, Ukrainians make up 95% of the population of Western Ukraine (in Donbas they make up only 69%, and 89% in the South and East); in linguistic terms, 93% claim Ukrainian as their native language while the national average is only 60% (84% in the Center, 42% in the South, 36% in the East, and 27% in Donbas).31 The city of Lviv has the same ethno-linguistic composition as the entire region: 97% of respondents declare themselves “ethnically Ukrainian”, 3% ethnically Russian; 89% speak Ukrainian at home, 4% speak Russian, 6% speak reportedly both languages.32 In other words, the eastern regions look a bit less “patriotic” just because they have a higher number of ethnic Russians and Russophones. This is not to say they are hostile or completely alien vis-à-vis Ukraine but they are much more likely, for obvious reasons, to have mixed cultural and, sometimes, political loyalties vis-à-vis Russia as a kin state. This, in turn, increases the probability of a lower attachment toward all things Ukrainian and of a more ambivalent and hesitant stance on certain sensitive political issues.

Different Kinds of ‘Otherness’ To decouple patriotism from nationalism is not an easy task until and unless the latter takes an aggressive stance against local minorities and/or outside groups or nations. In all other terms like strength or salience of national identity or its supremacy over other identities the person pos- sesses, they are virtually indistinguishable.

70 One of the possible ways to determine potentially dangerous 22) Liberalism is not a very popular ideology in Ukraine (as features of local nationalism is to measure the level of xenophobia. In elsewhere in Eastern Europe): less than 3% support it in both As in the case of the higher social optimism, West and East. But there are twice as many supporters of the patriotic mobilization might be the “national democratic” ideology in the West (28%) than in the main reason for an apparently exaggerated East (14%), while the support for overtly illiberal ideologies assessment of personal well-being in Lviv is roughly the same: 4.7% for radical nationalists and and elsewhere in Western Ukraine. 0.4% for communists in the West, and 2.3% for radical this regard, the nationwide surveys carried out by the Kiev International nationalists and 2.1% for communists in the East. http:// Institute of Sociology (KIIS) do not bode well for Western Ukrainians. The razumkov.org.ua/napriamky/ sotsiologichni-doslidzhennia/ region was scored with 4.7 on the Bogardus seven-point scale, while the presreliz-tsentru-razumkova- ideolohichni-oriientatsii- national average appeared to be 4.2 and the lowest score of 3.6 was found hromadian-ukrainy. West Ukrainians express 33 in Ukraine’s South. Lviv, in fact, might be closer to the 4.2 average than much stronger support for unrestrained freedom of speech to the 4.7 regional extreme because cities are usually more tolerant than – against all forms of censorship (64% versus 13%); while the rural areas. One should also probably keep in mind that the aggregate national average is 42% vs. 26%. http://ratinggroup.ua/ data contains the findings from a very peculiar region of Transcarpatia files/ratinggroup/reg_files/ rg_orientyry_052013.pdf where the largest part of Ukraine’s heavily stigmatized Roma minority is 23) ratinggroup.ua/files/ concentrated. This also inflates the aggregate regional data, although Lviv ratinggroup/reg_files/rg_ orientyry_052013.pdf may have little to do with the problem. Nonetheless, the obtained results 24) West Ukrainians barely characterize the region as proudly “European”. demonstrate, as a rule, the highest turnout in all national The Razumkov Center research seems to confirm the KIIS results, elections. They also express the highest readiness for all 34 although it employs a different measurement. The pollsters asked the forms of protest (46% versus the national average of 37%) in respondents to list the members of an ethnic group that he/she would like case their rights and interests are infringed by authorities. to have as a neighbor and, separately, to list those whom he or she would not http://ratinggroup.ua/ files/ratinggroup/reg_files/ like to have nearby. Again, the Western Ukrainians appeared to be the least rg_electoral_052017_press. pdf. Also, importantly, 43% tolerant, with only 39% claiming that the ethnicity of the neighbors does of Westerners agree that their personal engagement is needed not matter (the national average was 53%), while 44% of the Westerners to change the situation in the country for the better, 39% expressed their preference for an ethnically Ukrainian neighborhood (the disagree. The nationwide attitude is the opposite: only national average was 29%). Among the least desirable neighbors, Roma 33% of respondents agree, 47% disagree. http://razumkov. predictably took the lead, with the highest negative result of 41% scored in org.ua/uploads/socio/2017_ Politychna_kultura.pdf. the West (the nationwide average was 32%). Russians came in second, seen 25) doi.org/10.2307/3650067 negatively by 30% of the Western Ukrainians (the national average was 26) dif.org.ua/article/ 13%). While the negative othering of Roma is a typical phenomenon for gromadska-dumka-ukraini- na-28-rotsi-nezalezhnosti- all of Central and Eastern Europe, specifically for the areas where Roma derzhavi

are concentrated (65% of respondents in Czech Republic and in Slovakia 27) ratinggroup.ua/files/ ratinggroup/reg_files/ would not like to have Roma as neighbors, the same negative attitude rg_40000_portraits_of_the_ regions_122018_press.pdf is expressed by 67% of respondents in Bulgaria, 55% in Belarus, 51% in

71 35 36 POLITICS Russia, 42% in Slovenia, 62% in Italy ), the pronouncedly negative UKRAINE attitude towards Russians is a relatively new phenomenon, that indicates instead the strong disapproval of the politics of the Russian state rather than a genuine ethnic bias.37

Which groups of people would you not like to have as neighbors?

Regions, countries / Ukraine’s Ukraine’s Ukraine in Russia Poland Germany Social groups West East general

Drug users 93.7 96.6 94.0 93.2 73.9 66.3

Alcoholics 76.7 81.1 81.5 84.3 65.4 70.2

Homosexuals 60.0 80.0 66.5 66.2 39.6 22.4

People with AIDS 44.3 58.1 42.9 54.3 25.6 24.0

Immigrants & Gaestarbeiters 16.7 36.6 20.3 32.2 7.2 21.4

Racially different people 12.9 20.8 12.1 17.2 5.5 14.8

People of different religion 7.6 6.0 6.7 14.3 4.6 14.1

People of different speech 4.2 6.0 6.6 18.9 3.2 13.4

Couples who live unmarried 1.1 2.4 2.9 7.8 3.5 9.3

TABLE 1: Regional and nationwide responses to the question “Which groups of people you would not like to have as neighbors?” (the respondents could choose from the list any number of answers)

As to the other minorities, Western Ukrainians are slightly more than the Easterners, inclined to place them on the negative list as undesirable neighbors, but also, paradoxically, more willing to place them on the positive list of preferable neighbors (e.g., 4% of the Westerners would not like to have Poles as their neighbors but 28% would like them, while the national average is respectively 3% and 18%).38 The paradox probably stems from the fact that minorities are concentrated primarily in the West and are much more conspicuous and ethnically marked there than in the East. This probably makes Westerners’ attitudes toward minorities more concrete, based on personal experience and therefore differentiated. They might be more positive or more negative but, in any case, less indifferent.

72 In the East, the minorities are pure abstractions, ethnic only by name. 28) csrv2.ukrstat.gov.ua/ operativ/operativ2008/ In most cases, they are heavily Russified and virtually indistinguishable gdn/dvn_ric/dvn_ric_u/ dn_reg2013_u.html from the Russian-speaking majority. One may only guess what the 29) www.iri.org/sites/default/ Easterners’ attitude toward ethnic neighbors would be if they were files/2018-3-22_ukraine_poll.pdf really different, beyond the tenets of Soviet “internationalism”. The One more explanatory factor may be the structure of the empirical evidence from Ukraine’s south-east does not characterize local West Ukrainian economy where small and medium- Russophone urbanites very positively. In a number of cases, they express size businesses prevail. This ensures a more equal unprovoked (and unmatched in the West) aggression against at least two distribution of income than the oligarchic economy groups that became increasingly visible in the post-Soviet period—Tatars that prevails in the East and enriches enormously a few at in Crimea and Ukrainian-speakers in Odessa, Kharkiv, Dnipro and other the cost of the many. https:// www.economist.com/ 39 large cities. free-exchange/2016/01/20/ the-ukrainian-economy-is-not- How much could you trust the following terrible-everywhere categories of people? 30) www.ji.lviv.ua/n23texts/ kostyrko-146.htm

Regions, 31) razumkov.org.ua/uploads/ countries / cate- Ukraine’s Ukraine’s Ukraine in Russia Poland Germany journal/ukr/NSD169-170_2017_ gories of people West East general ukr.pdf

32) www.iri.org/sites/default/ Trust in neighbors 82.6 72.6 73.0 72.5 73.8 73.5 files/2018-3-22_ukraine_poll.pdf Trust in people of different religions/ 33) kiis.com.ua/?lang= Confessions 52.4 28.7 35.1 36.5 48.1 50.0 ukr&cat=reports&id= 793&page=1 Trust in people of different ethnicity 53.9 28.7 37.5 36.7 47.7 51.8 34) http://www.razumkov.org. Trust in people you ua/upload/Identi-2016.pdf never met before 26.5 19.8 22.2 20.4 23.8 30.9 35) dbk.gesis.org/dbksearch/ TABLE 2: Regional andnationwide responses to the question “Which groups of people you would not like to sdesc2.asp?no=7500 have as neighbors?” (the respondents could choose from the list any number of answers) 36) europeanvaluesstudy. eu/2019/05/23/evs2017- The subsequent study by the Razumkov Center sheds more light on the results-from-a-survey- experiment-on-social-distance- issue of regional tolerance by extending the list of (hypothetical) “undesirable in-italy/ neighbors” and also attaching, for comparison, the responses from a few 37) www.razumkov.org.ua/ upload/Identi-2016.pdf other countries. Remarkably, in all but one minor issue (of religion) Western 38) www.razumkov.org.ua/ Ukrainians appeared to be more tolerant than their compatriots from the East upload/Identi-2016.pdf and, in most cases, than the respondents from Russia.40 The same study also provides remarkable data on social trust: in Ukraine, in its regions, and in a few neighboring countries.41 Here, once again, Western Ukrainians appear to be a bit closer in their attitudes to Poles and Germans than to their Eastern brethren and Russians. While the trust in neighbors or completely unknown strangers probably indicates the level of social capital only, the trust in people of other religions/confessions or other ethnicity/nationality also indicates some level of ethnic/religious biases (or lack thereof).

73 POLITICS The Razumkov Center data does not disprove the KIIS findings that UKRAINE indicate a rather high social distance of Western Ukrainians from other ethnic groups along the Bogardus scale. It does, however, place into doubt the presumably lower (as the KIIS study contends) distance of Eastern Ukrainians vis-à-vis the same groups. It actually indicates a substantially higher bias vis-à-vis real otherness in the East than in the West. The most probable explanation of the data discrepancy is that the KIIS study assumed the same notions of ethnicity in both the West and the East while in fact they were quite different. In the West, “ethnicity” seems to be more meaningful, more culturally significant than in the East, where it used to be a sheer declaration, enshrined in the Soviet documents but void of any significant (non-Soviet/non-Russian) cultural markers. It largely reflects the legacy of Soviet “internationalism”: ethnicity does not matter—as long as the person is “ours”, i.e. Soviet and Russian-speaking. This notion of “otherness” (and “our-ness”) is reflected in a peculiar way in one more nationwide survey carried out in 2006 by the Razumkov Center that asked respondents “How are inhabitants of Ukraine’s different regions and of some neighboring countries close to you in character, habits and traditions?” Predictably, Kiev and Central Ukraine were defined as closest to everybody, while Turkey, Hungary and Romania were named as the furthest.42 Remarkably, Western Ukraine was placed not only behind Russia but also behind Belarus—a country virtually unknown in Ukraine, with very limited personal contacts between the citizens. It was recognized as “close” probably only because of a deeply internalized Soviet myth about the tripartite East Slavonic “brotherhood” that also adds Belarus to the Russo-Ukrainian duo. To decouple patriotism from nationalism is not an easy task until and unless the latter takes an aggressive stance against local minorities and/or outside groups or nations. The 2016 survey offered a similar question (“How close to each other are the inhabitants of different regions in their cultures, traditions and views?”) but applied a different scale of measurement that made the results of the two surveys difficult to compare. What is clear, however, from juxtaposition, is that the Western Ukrainians are still perceived as more distant from the Eastern Ukrainians than, generally, the citizens of

74 If you had to choose now, would you support the declaration of 39) The 2011 Odesa case gained Ukraine’s independence? perhaps the broadest publicity because the Ukrainian-speaker was insulted by the state servant who, according to Year / Respondent’s Ukrainian Both Ukrainian Russian Overall the 1989 law (never observed native language (yes/no) and Russian in Ukraine though), was obliged to know and use Ukrainian. See: Odesa Policeman Calls Ukrainian 2001 60/16 43/30 23/45 56/28 “Cow” Language, RFE/ RL Newsline, 26 January 2013 77/17 54/35 35/48 61/28 2011, http://www.rferl.org/ content/ukrainian_language_ 2014 91/5 71/15 45/30 76/12 cow/2288383.html. In private services, such situations are 2019 89/7 78/15 73/19 82/12 much more ubiquitous. One of the latest stories comes from the TV presenter Yanina TABLE 3: Support for national independence from Ukraine’s major ethnolinguistic groups as indicated by Sokolova who approached their answer to the question “If you had to choose now, would you support the declaration of Ukraine’s conveniently an Odesa taxi independence?” (only ‘yes’ and ‘no’ answers are shown in the table). driver in Ukrainian and received a boorish response: “You, fascist! We’ll take on you soon!” (Sokolova Ukraine from the citizens of Russia. And, in a new twist in the public mood, got into a scandal with a Ukrainophobic taxi-driver in the inhabitants of Galicia are seen as more distant from the inhabitants of Odesa. Obozrevatel, 22 July 2019, https://www.obozrevatel. Donbas than are the citizens of Ukraine in general distant from the citizens com/society/sho-fshistyi- sokolova-popala-v-skandal- of the EU.43 s-taksistom-ukrainofobom- v-odesse.htm). I discussed This does not necessarily mean that the inhabitants of Galicia the problem in more detail in the article Ukrainian Culture or Western Ukraine are considered “worse”, or “hostile”. Actually, the after Communism: Between Post-Colonial Liberation and 2015 nationwide survey represented a rather positive image of Western Neo-Colonial Subjugation, in: Dobrota Pucherova and Robert Ukrainians, seen by their co-citizens. They defined them primarily as Gafrik (eds.), Postcolonial East-Central Europe: Essays “patriotic” (38%), “religious” (35%), “cultured” (28%), “committed to on Literature and Culture (Amsterdam: Rodopi Publ., family values” (23%), “clever and educated” (16%), and “ready to help” 2015), specifically p. 346-354.

(14.5%). The negative views gained much lower currency (the respondents 40) razumkov.org.ua/uploads/ journal/ukr/NSD169-170_2017_ could mention up to three features). 6% of respondents defined Galicians ukr.pdf as “cunning”, 5% as “aggressive”, 5% as “uncultured, uneducated”, and 41) razumkov.org.ua/uploads/ journal/ukr/NSD169-170_2017_ 2% as “lawless”.44 There is no earlier data, unfortunately, to trace the ukr.pdf dynamic of changes but they seem to be coterminous with the spread of 42) razumkov.org.ua/ uploads/journal/ukr/ a positive meaning of “nationalism”. Nonetheless, a feeling of otherness NSD79_2006_ukr.pdf seems to prevail: Galicians might be OK but not “like us”. They fall out 43) razumkov.org.ua/uploads/ journal/ukr/NSD161-162_2016_ of the mythical matrix of the East Slavonic/Orthodox Christian imagined ukr.pdf community.45 44) icps.com.ua/assets/ uploads/files/national_ dialogue/poll_for_regions/00_ survey_ukraine_ua.pdf At the Bottom-line All the apparent differences between Ukraine’s regions and ethno-linguistic groups notwithstanding, they are gradually evolving in the same— pro-Ukrainian and pro-Western—direction, in term of their identities and

75 POLITICS political attitudes. This largely explains why Ukraine did not split under UKRAINE external pressure—as was expected in Moscow and as often happens with truly divided societies. The ethnolinguistic groups in Ukraine differ only in terms of the different levels (intensity and unanimity) of their loyalty toward Ukraine, but not by opposite loyalties toward different states. The same dynamics can be also observed in different age groups: the younger the people, the more likely they are to be strongly pro-Western and pro-Ukrainian. All this seriously places in doubt the “exceptional” and “abnormal” status of Western Ukraine. The social dynamics instead implies a gradual “normalization” of the entire country, although painstaking, contradictory and convoluted. In any case, the higher level of patriotism and strong, preeminent and salient national identity in Western Ukraine cannot be seen as proof of “nationalism” (in negative terms)—as long as they do not clearly match with xenophobia and ethnic exclusiveness. Western Ukrainians are not as tolerant as we would like them to be, but their attitude toward all kinds of otherness (not only ethnic but also confessional, gender, or social) does not differ substantially from their compatriots to the east or neighbors to the west. Their support for far right parties and candidates is lower than in most European nations and, actually, lower than in Eastern Ukraine—if we consider the mass support for “Opposition Platform” (the former Party of Regions) at least partially as an expression of Putin-style Russian nationalism. Western Ukrainians are slightly more than the Easterners, inclined to place them on the negative list as undesirable neighbors, but also, paradoxically, more willing to place them on the positive list. Finally, the proverbial Western Ukrainian “nationalism” has a rather inclusive view of the Ukrainian nation. Only 16% of respondents in the West define it in ethnic terms—as people of Ukrainian origin, regardless of where they live. Paradoxically, in Eastern Ukraine this view is shared by a substantially higher number (24%) of respondents. Both in the West (50%) and the East (52%), the majority opt for a civic definition of the Ukrainian nation—by citizenship.47 The only parameter in which the Westerners are more exclusive is native language. 28% of them contend that ethnicity does not matter but that command of

76 Ukrainian is a must. In the East, the figure is lower, at 17%. Once again, 45) www.eurozine.com/ emancipation-from-the-east- the underlying desire in this attitude is probably not so much to exclude slavonic-ummah/

the “others”, but rather to include them by encouraging them to learn 46) Dynamic of the patriotic views. Rating Sociological and use Ukrainian—the language that still is discursively stigmatized and Group, August 2013, p. 12; http://ratinggroup.ua/ marginalized in most urban centers of Ukraine. files/ratinggroup/reg_files/ rg_patriotyzm_082013.2.pdf; Western Ukrainians are still perceived Dynamic of the patriotic views. Rating Sociological as more distant from the Eastern Group, August 2014, p. 13; http://ratinggroup.ua/ Ukrainians than, generally, the citizens of files/ratinggroup/reg_files/ rg_patriotyzm_082014. Ukraine from the citizens of Russia. pdf; and Dynamic 2019, p. 8; http://ratinggroup.ua/ Western Ukrainians in general and the citizens of Lviv in particular files/ratinggroup/reg_files/ rg_patriotyzm_082019.pdf. face a difficult dual task: to tackle their burdensome “nationalist” image 47) www.razumkov.org.ua/ and play the self-assigned role of the Ukrainian “Piedmont” that leads upload/Identi-2016.pdf both the national revival and social modernization. The emphasis on the latter might be a good key to the successful managing of the former.

MYKOLA RIABCHUK is honorary president of the Ukrainian PEN Centre and a senior research fellow at the Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. As a Fulbright scholar, he taught at Penn State University in 1994-95, University of Texas at Austin in 1996 and carried out research at George Washington University in 2016. He was visiting professor at Columbia University in 2006 and University of Alberta in 2007–2008, and recurrently, since 2002 up to the present day, at the University of Warsaw. ASPEN.REVIEW HANNA SZYMBORSKA Are Wealth Taxes ECONOMY WEALTH the Panacea for the TAX JUSTICE Ills of Capitalism?

The structure of many modern tax systems may have actively contributed to inequality. What is more, the greatest tax burden is often experienced not by those at the top of the ladder but by low-to-middle income families.

Around the world, increasingly unequal—and divided—societies speak out loudly against the rules of the game in modern capitalist economies, which rely on profit-oriented, private markets to produce and distribute economic resources. This rising popular discontent about inequality has found its outlet in the US and UK election campaigns. In the USA, several Democratic candidates in the 2020 presidential elections have unveiled plans for a far-reaching reform of the taxation system. In the USA, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a progressive tax on net wealth (assets less debt), with marginal tax rates increasing from 1% on wealth holdings over $32 million to 8% on net wealth over $10 billion. Sena- tor Elizabeth Warren also put forward plans for implementation of a wealth tax, albeit at lower marginal rates of 2% on wealth holdings over $50 million and 3% on holdings over $1 billion. In the UK, the Labour Party is said to be considering raising taxes on returns to wealth (a so-called capital gains tax) and replacing the inheritance tax (which raises notoriously low revenues) with a lifetime capital receipt tax (see Sir Tony Atkinson’s 2015 book). The fact that concrete wealth tax proposals have found their way into political manifestos is undeniable, and this has been facilitated by vast academic research on the topic. Development of new methods and datasets has made it possible to estimate how much is paid in taxes by different people across the distribution of income and wealth. There has also been more evidence on the effects of different types of taxes on inequality and economic performance in general, with some studies going as far as to analyze the rel-

78 Aspen.Review/Panacea ative merits of different redistributive policies (for example, raising tax rates versus expanding social transfers, see Guillaud, Olckers, and Zemmour 2017). At the forefront of the taxation research is the work of Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman. It was Piketty’s seminal book, Capi- tal in the Twenty-First Century, which brought the idea of wealth taxes back to the mainstream of policy debates. His proposal involved introducing an annual progressive wealth tax on net wealth values over $1.35 million. Piket- ty was unapologetic about the necessity of such a wealth tax to be levied globally to deal with the possibilities of tax evasion. Piketty’s original proposal has been met with a mixed response from experts. Its critics often point out that wealth taxes have been historically unpopular and easy to avoid, which explains why numerous countries have abandoned some form of wealth taxes over the past decades (for an over- view of these criticisms see Steve Pressman’s 2015 book and my chapter in Rochon and Monvoisin 2019). Many of these critics also argue that reform- ing current policy tools such as personal income taxes, corporate taxes, or value-added taxes (VAT) would be more than enough to tackle rising inequality. If this is the case, why have wealth taxes gotten so much traction? Part of the answer is that existing tax policies have not been doing a good job of redistributing economic resources more fairly. This was called out by Piketty in his 2014 book, where he claimed that only taxes on the stock of wealth holdings can reign in the massive accumulation of wealth by the very rich. The fact that concrete wealth tax proposals have found their way into political manifestos is undeniable, and this has been facilitated by vast academic research on the topic.

The Doors to Tax Avoidance are the Problems In fact, the structure of many modern tax systems may have actively contributed to inequality. There is evidence that existing tax breaks in the UK and in the USA have benefited the rich (see, for example, Levin, Greer, and Rademacher 2014 or Adam Corlett’s November 2019 report for the Resolution Foundation). In addition, the greatest tax burden is often experienced not by those at the top of the ladder but by low-to-middle income families. In their latest book, The Triumph of Injustice, Saez and Zucman reveal a shocking find- ing that billionaires currently pay lower tax rates than their secretaries.

79 ECONOMY The problem is not just that existing taxes are not high or progressive WEALTH enough, but that the way in which many of these policies are designed opens the door to tax avoidance and regulatory arbitrage for some, at the expense of higher tax burden for others. For instance, some types of income such as capital gains from increasing asset values tend to be either untaxed or face lower rates than taxes on earnings—while they constitute a major income source for the rich. A large part of the capital owned by the rich is not held in physical assets but in some form of financial assets. Financial wealth is more liquid and for this reason it can easily be moved to tax havens, where it can benefit from lower tax rates. What is more, corporate income taxes are notoriously easy to avoid. The world’s largest companies, including Amazon and Netflix, are known to have underpaid taxes on profits, taking advantage of stock buybacks and moving some of their profits to tax havens. In addition, VAT and other indirect (also called consumption) taxes have been shown to be regressive and impact mainly finances of low-to-middle income families who spend a larger part of their incomes on consumption. A striking example of this was experienced in France, where a proposal to increase taxes on fuel sparked protests of “gilet jaunes”. While wealth taxes are an attractive alternative to the existing loop- hole-ridden tax system, they suffer from some serious drawbacks which need to be addressed by any future proposals. Data compiled by Oxfam show that in 2015 wealth taxes constituted only 4 % of the overall global tax revenue, even though they are not a new idea. In fact, wealth taxes had once been implemented in several countries around the globe, but they have been gradually abandoned due to low revenues and high administrative costs (see, for example, the April 2018 report by OECD Tax Policy Studies).

The Increasingly more Mobile Capital One of the most important reasons behind the failures of earlier wealth taxes and problems with corporate income taxes is the increasingly more mobile nature of capital. A large part of the capital owned by the rich is not held in physical assets (such as property, luxury goods, etc.) but in some form of financial assets. Financial wealth is more liquid (that is, it can be sold faster than physical assets), and for this reason it can easily be moved to tax ha-

80 vens, where it can benefit from lower tax rates. Tax havens are sustained by these inflows of capital, which leads to a race to the bottom between countries and among smaller tax jurisdictions. This explains why wealth taxes have been previously abandoned and why many countries are lowering corporate income taxes to encourage capital inflows. Recent research exposes the scale of legal tax avoidance and illegal tax evasion around the globe. A team of researchers led by Zuckman estimates that each year nearly 40% of profits of multinational corporations are moved to tax havens, which corresponded to over $650 billion in 2016. This shift re- duced the global revenue from corporate income taxes by almost $200 billion, which is equivalent to 10% of global corporate tax receipts. Any future wealth taxes need to reckon with this issue in order to provide a true alternative to the flawed taxation systems which are currently in place. This is where the second part of the answer to the question of why wealth taxes have become so popular comes in. Effective taxation of wealth creates opportunities for raising the amount of tax revenue that cannot be paralleled by increases in personal or corporate income taxes. Experts estimate that Sanders’ and Warren’s wealth tax proposals have potential to raise over $4.3 trillion and $2.7 trillion respectively in tax revenue. One potential reason for higher wealth tax revenues is that the amounts accumulated in the stocks of wealth are substantially larger than the taxable flows of personal or corporate income.

There is no one Panacea for Reducing Inequality Wealth taxes, however, do more than that: when properly designed, they allow the capture of resources that are currently allowed to escape through the loopholes of the existing taxes. This begs a question as to what kind of wealth taxes would be truly effective. The definition of wealth embodied in these taxes needs to be scrutinized, alongside potentially perverse incentives for tax avoidance that specific wealth tax proposals may create. By themselves, a Sanders- or Warren-style wealth tax may not be enough to bring radical and long-standing reduction in inequality. They are a good start, however, for deeper, more far-reaching reform of the entire taxation system and public spending programs. Given the scale of tax avoidance and evasion, Piketty’s call for global reform seems inevitable—and there are ideas on how to make it happen (see, for example, the March 2019 ICRICT report on a global asset registry).

81 ECONOMY An international organization such as the IMF, the World Bank, or the Euro- WEALTH pean Union have expressed concerns about growing inequality—and if they are serious about tackling this issue, they should consider a global strategy for taxing wealth, in cooperation with national governments. Ultimately, future policy reforms ought to be embraced by the rich. While undoubtedly difficult, this is perhaps the most effective way of discouraging regulatory arbitrage, tax avoidance, and tax evasion. Several billionaires, including George Soros, Bill Gates, and Abigail Disney, have already expressed some support for wealth taxes. I have recently been asked an important question that has been surprisingly underplayed in the current wealth tax debates. If wealth taxes do become a reality, what would the resulting revenue be used for? When dis- cussing wealth tax proposals, policymakers should not neglect the reform of public spending programs as societal needs are great—from affordable housing and decent social benefits to universal healthcare and childcare, and a green infrastructure. Such bold proposals are increasingly on the political agenda. Proposals on improving public services makes wealth taxes more viable as only such comprehensive policy overhaul can achieve lasting improvements in inequality. In summary, there is no one panacea for reducing inequality in a sus- tainable way. Whether one believes that billionaires should not exist in a fair economy (like Senator Sanders), or that large wealth should only be accumulated due to one’s merit (like Senator Warren), the fact is that the vast majority of wealth at the top remains unearned. Wealth accumulates not as a result of hard work by the rich or by producing something of value, but rather thanks to asset price increases. Despite this massive accumulation of wealth, many modern capitalist economies are still feeling the pinch of the Great Recession. Radical proposals are much needed and given the current political climate and their potential merits, well-designed wealth taxes are a welcomed initiative to invigorate economies and redistribute resources in a fairer way.

HANNA SZYMBORSKA is a senior lecturer in economics at Birmingham City University. Her research interests include the economics of inequality, household finance, financial macroeconomics, and the history of economic thought. She is a founding member of Decolonising and Diversifying Economics (D-Econ), sits on the Association for Heterodox Economics committee, and is a member of Reteaching Economics UK.

82 ASPEN.REVIEW Ivan Mikloš: ROBERT SCHUSTER ECONOMY Every Eighteen UPCOMING CRISIS PUBLIC FINANCES Years a Real Estate SLOVAKIA Bubble is Popped and Followed by an Economic Crisis The world economy suffers from short-sighted policies enacted by politicians who only see the next elections, who seek to buy their popularity and pay off the electorate, and are reluctant to enact difficult reforms, says former Slovak politician and economist Ivan Mikloš in an interview with Robert Schuster.

ROBERT SCHUSTER: What is the state to new technologies and globalization. of the world economy? Is there We have experienced a long period of another crisis lurking around the economic growth since 2009, yet the pace corner, as we can read sometimes? is slower. Assets, mainly real estate and IVAN MIKLOŠ: So far, we are not talking stocks, have had a record growth. The about a crisis but about a downturn, or a New York stock Exchange has had the pronounced slowdown, if you will. This longest and steepest growth in its history. is evident in the global economy, in the European economy, and specifically in So, is the theory about the eco- Germany, the powerhouse of Europe. nomic cycles still valid? It is set to be growing by a half percent, Yes, in its essence it is, despite the fact that next year maybe by one percent. When on a different level modern technologies it comes to a crisis, the only certainty is bring different aspects to it. In essence that it will come. We do not know when though, it is certain that sooner or later it will come and what it will entail. I do another crisis will come. There is one more think, however, that we have been cured relatively interesting connection, and that is of illusions entertained at the beginning that almost all instances of economic crisis of the millennium, which predicted the and recession are tied to a burst of a real end of the economic crisis as such, thanks estate bubble, as was the case in 2009. It is

Aspen.Review/18YearsCycle 83 the proverbial exception to the rule when it has outpaced the economy. When crisis is not so, like in 2001 and the pop of the dot. comes, there will be no room to increase com bubble. There are historical records the debt. The situation is actually more since the mid-nineteenth century demon- complex than in the past. The interest strating that real estate bubbles burst rates are hovering around zero, even be- roughly every eighteen years. The twentieth low, and there is nowhere to lower them. century was an exception, with World War So when it was no longer possible to lower II, but since the 1960s it has been on track. interest rates, then came the quantitative We cannot be certain, of course, but if the easing, which has direct and indirect neg- eighteen year cycle keeps going, then the ative consequences. It made sense in the next one could be around 2024, as it was critical years 2008 and 2009 when it was in 2006 when real estate prices stopped important to prevent the freezing of finan- growing in the USA, and in 2007 first banks cial flows and a further deepening of the began folding. But then again, there is not a crisis. The problem is, it is still being used one hundred percent guarantee. today, ten years later. There is a strong analogy with treating a disease. When pain What about the traditional tools killers are used, the pain symptom goes that governments have been using away, yet the underlying cause remains to give some momentum to the unaddressed. On the contrary, it becomes economy, such as lowering of the worse. I do think it is a serious issue, and interest rates, are they still effective? there is a growing resistance against it, be Well, now we have a problem. The clas- it at the EU Central Bank level or among sical tools of crisis monetary policies will the Eurozone states. not be available, as they all have been used up before crisis hits again. Central What is the solution? bankers have been trying to stimulate To launch real reforms. Quantitative growth using a toolkit for recession times, easing is taking time from us, it devalues and they have not been successful. The money, it makes it easier for governments growth since the global financial crisis to borrow and it eases the pressure to com- has been slower than before. At the same mit to long term solutions and reforms. time, all the monetary and fiscal instru- What I mean by that are healthy, sustaina- ments have been used up, so they will not ble public finances—i.e. lowering the defi- be available. The global debt, private and cits and debts, structural reforms—of labor public, has gone up in the last ten years. markets, social sphere, healthcare and So whatever growth there has been, it pensions. Yet the main conflict is between has been fueled by a growing debt, which the politics and economy. Politicians who

84 think only until next elections, buy their Yes, it would be more difficult, but not only popularity and are unwilling to commit to due to the above-mentioned reasons. The serious reforms seem to be running the main problem is that we are lacking tools show today. That gets us into a vicious that could be used effectively. Interest circle—growing debt, putting off reforms, rates cannot be brought down any lower, and in the meantime the problems that and when it comes to quantitative easing need to be addressed as soon as possible and bond purchasing central banks are are becoming too big to tackle. meeting the limits they had set upon We can view it through the lenses of eco- themselves. It is a vicious circle, because nomic theory. When John Maynard Keynes one of the main reasons for the upcoming came up with his theory in the 1930s, most recession are the trade wars, the eco- economists considered his ideas irrespon- nomic nationalism and the protectionism sible. His view was that during crisis the unleashed by Donald Trump. Economic state should spend more money, and the nationalism can be seen elsewhere as fiscal and monetary policies should be well. It is one of the underlying causes of expansive in order to mitigate the crisis. Brexit. Then there is the rise of popularity That was seen as reckless. Keynes says, of certain extremist parties which prefer however, that in order to be able to spend economic isolationism. money in a time of crisis, there ought to be a budget surplus when times are good Europe seems to be between a and the economy is growing. Right now we rock and a hard place, the USA are in a situation when governments are and China. What would be the only taking the first part of his advice, and best strategy for survival? everyone is ignoring the other half, which Europe is on the right path, because it is says one should be creating a surplus. So supporting free market and it is bringing most governments are running a budget down trade barriers. The hurdle is not so deficit even during growth years. much in a wrong strategy but that its unified voice, if you like, is relatively weak. There The recent global crisis was brought is a legitimacy issue, too many decisions under control thanks to joint actions are made on the national level and no quick taken by a wide range of players, change is on the horizon. The importance for example by G20. Can you see of respecting the single market and of it happen today when we are wit- bringing down the trade barriers stands nessing the erosion of multilateral out clearly with a looming Brexit. Euro- agreements, and some are bent on peans have no other choice but to remain pursuing unilateral interests? proactive. It does bring results. The threat

85 of a trade war between the USA and China that need to take place: healthy public did speed up negotiations on trade deals finances, ease of doing business, quality of in Asia, and between Europe and Canada. governance, education, research and de- One simply must look for space elsewhere. velopment. If a country is dynamic, flexible and reformist, it is doable. How has the economic role of V4 countries changed in the last thirty And the other trap is? years? Does it still conjure up the That would be illiberal democracy. Hungary image of a giant assembly line? finds itself there, Poland is on its way, and We can be absolutely certain that for the we can see some symptoms in the Czech countries of our region the thirty years Republic and Slovakia. The thing is that V4 since the fall of communism has been an countries are on a divergence path. We are unprecedentedly successful period. They successful, on the one hand, in economic have reached growth and development convergence—we are growing faster than that has been simply unimaginable. This rich countries and we are catching up with does not mean, however, that all is well them. When it comes down to social conver- and rosy. We could still do better. As far gence, or in other words, how this macroeco- as the future is concerned: in Slovakia you nomic success is projected into the quality of can often hear contemptuous talk about lives of ordinary people, on the other hand, “assembly lines”. We should ask our- there is still much more catching up to do. selves—what would be the alternatives? And then there is the third level, that of the As of now I am being active in Ukraine, institutions. This means that the improve- and there they would be very happy if they ment of governance according to the World had them. We have to focus now on what Governance Index of the World Bank is even comes next, and how the V4 countries are slower. This could spell the end of economic able to deal with future challenges. Right convergence as such. now, we find ourselves in a bit of a double Estonia is leading the pack in the governance trap. One is the trap of so-called middle progress, and is most likely to be success- income. What it means, according to the ful in the long term perspective. There is World Bank, is that when a country reaches agreement across the political parties about a certain economic level, between 17,000- the need for reforms and modernization. In 19,000 dollars per capita to be precise, and Central Europe, we see populism, buying wants to maintain a rapid growth, it needs out of the electorate, a carpe diem attitude, to change its character, what it does best. and a weak drive to implement reforms and The focus must be on innovations. In order strengthen institutions. In addition, we see to do so, there are many necessary reforms liberal democracy under attack in Hungary

86 and Poland, along with fair and free compe- That is basically impossible. There are tition in the political arena. Encroaching of unprecedented challenges and threats political freedom will sooner or later hamper ahead: climate change, sovereign debt the economy and its competitiveness. Russia crisis, ineffectiveness of traditional eco- serves as a prime example of how far things nomic tools. It is true, however, that so far can go, when you have a corrupt system of we have always managed to come out on state capitalism which simply cannot be top when crises hit, so hopefully thanks competitive due to its very nature. to new technologies and freedom we will Countries in Central Europe, with their be able to pull it off again in twenty years limited experience with freedom, are not time. The question is what new problems alone in this. There are similar trends in the will arise. It is clear now that progress in USA or in the UK, because Trump and Brexit technology, AI included, will require com- are very similar phenomena. Or take a look pletely new approaches all over the world. at Slovakia, where the government party The cooperation will need to become more Smer still polls at about twenty percent, intensive in Europe, and globally as well. despite everything in its past and what we As far as Central Europe is concerned, I know today. When you add fascist and other am an optimist in the sense that over time populists, the picture is pretty bleak. The we will come to understand that liberal de- fight for freedom and open society is never mocracy and a market economy based on over, yet I am deeply convinced that there is equal opportunity and fair competition is no better alternative. Unfortunately, history the best way forward. This is exactly in the shows us time and time again that humanity spirit of the words of Winston Churchill, has to go down the dead end road first to that democracy is the worst form of gov- learn its lesson. ernment except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… Would you endeavor to predict where the World or the European economy will be in twenty years?

IVAN MIKLOŠ is former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of the Slovak Republic (2002- 2006, 2010-2012), Deputy Prime Minister for Economics (1998-2002), and Minister of Privatization (1991-1992). He co-founded and led the economic think tank MESA10 (1992- 1998). Between 2006-2010 and 2012-2016, he was a Member of Parliament. In 2014, he was reappointed as President of MESA10 and became a Member of the International Advisory Board of the National Reform Council of Ukraine and the platform Vox Ukraine. During 2015-2016, he served as Chief Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Ukraine and as an Ad- visor to the Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine. He served as Chief Economic Advisor to the Prime Minister of Ukraine from April 2016 to August 2019. He is Chairman of the Strategic Advisory Group for Support of Ukrainian Reforms (SAGSUR) and Co-Founder of the Ukrainian economic think tank Centre for Economic Strategy. ASPEN.REVIEW AHTO LOBJAKAS 5G: Estonia Picks ECONOMY ESTONIA National Security SECURITY over Technology

Estonia is the second EU member state, after Poland, which effectively rules out Chinese companies as suppliers of software or hardware for its 5G networks.

When it comes to the development of next-generation 5G mobile networks, Estonia has been caught on the horns of a dilemma. As a self-styled digital trailblazer, it needs all the innovative edge it can get—and 5G technology would appear to be essential. Estonia’s precarious security situation, nes- tled alongside a Russia which is presumed to present a real threat, means it is very receptive, however, to pressure from its main supplier, the United States. Thus it came as no real surprise when the Estonian Prime Minister Jüri Ratas signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ in Washington on 31 October 2019 with the US Vice President Mike Pence which effectively rules out Chinese companies as suppliers of software or hardware for Estonia’s 5G networks.

88 Aspen.Review/SecurityOverTech Estonia is the second EU member state to take such a step, after Po- 1) www.err.ee/998457/ratas- leppis-usa-s-pence-iga-kokku- land, which signed a similar Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in early 5g-uhises-lahenemises

September. Both countries have pivoted sharply towards the United States 2) news.postimees.ee/6813047/ estonia-to-pick-side-in-5g- in recent years, calculating that in increasingly uncertain times good rela- dispute

tions with Washington remain the safest bet. The United States has been 3) estonianworld.com/ technology/the-worlds-first-5g- concerned about Chinese intentions and ‘backdoor’ access to a critical in- phone-call-made-in-tallinn/

frastructure for the best part of the decade. It has found a sympathetic ear 4) news.postimees.ee/6813047/ estonia-to-pick-side-in-5g- among the so-called “Five Eye” nations which routinely share sensitive in- dispute

telligence: comprising, apart from the United States, United Kingdom, Can- 5) digi.geenius.ee/eksklusiiv/ kuum-kartul-huawei-eesti- ada, Australia, New Zealand—although the UK has still not come to a final voib-hiinlaste-tehnika- kasutamise-ara-keelata/ decision on whether to refuse Huawei and other Chinese companies access 6) For a recent example, to 5G network construction. see www.aripaev.ee/ arvamused/2019/11/03/ Things have come to the head under the presidency of Donald Trump raivo-vare-kapis-pole-hirmsat- hiinlast and the United States has upped pressure on the most vulnerable allies. The 7) news.postimees.ee/6802827/ MoUs accordingly reiterate key US concerns when it comes to building cutting kingo-s-phone-swap-angers- the-chinese edge communication networks: suppliers should be independent and transpar- ent in financing and ownership—and above all not subject to control by a foreign government which in turn must be subject to independent judicial oversight. All of this would seem to rule out Chinese enterprises. Both the Chinese government and Huawei deny that the company is controlled by the state. Like Poland, Estonia remains out of step with its “old” European neighbours. Both Germany and Finland, respectively, have refused to rule out Huawei’s participation, at least in some capacity, in 5G network construction.

A Question of Trustworthiness Prime Minister Ratas made clear, after the signing ceremony with US Vice President Pence, that both its digital future and the possible concerns about market access restrictions take a back seat to security concerns. “For Estonia, as a digital country, the trustworthiness of new technologies is of paramount importance—and in the field of national security, the United States remains our most important ally.”1 Estonian officials say that the considerations list- ed in the MoU do not specifically target Huawei, but affect all manufacturers of 5G technologies. Nevertheless, the thrust of the message is clear. “We’ll assess on a case-by-case basis whether a technology constitutes a security

89 ECONOMY risk for Estonia, or not,” says National Cyber Security Policy Director Raul ESTONIA Rikk.2 Already in the spring of 2019, the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Ser- vice reportedly concluded that Huawei does not meet this criterion. Like Poland, Estonia remains out of step with its “old” European neighbours. Both Germany and Finland, respectively, have refused to rule out Huawei’s participation, at least in some capacity, in 5G network construction. Estonia’s isolation is all the greater as neither of its southern Baltic neighbours— Latvia and Lithuania—have so far yielded to US pressure to sign similar MoUs. In fact the Estonian position presents an outright paradox, considering that it was Estonia’s Minister of the Economy, Kadri Simson, who placed what is thought to be the very first international mobile phone call using 5G technology. The call was made from Tallinn on 27 June 2018 to Simson’s Finnish counterpart Anne Berner, and its reported content was entirely in- nocuous.3 To add to the irony, the call was meant to celebrate the simultaneous opening of the world’s first 5G networks in Tallinn and the Finnish city of Tampere on the same day by the Finnish operator Elisa. Elisa is the only mobile telephone operator in Estonia which has not ruled out using Hua- wei’s technology in its 5G networks. The other two, Telia and Tele2 have said they would opt for Nokia or Ericsson.4

The Details Remain Unclear The change in Estonia’s position can be traced back to the March 2019 elections, which returned Simson’s Centre Party (with its leader Jüri Ratas re- maining Prime Minister) to power, but this time heading a new and dis- tinctly right-wing coalition. The two minor coalition partners this time, one a mainstream conservative party, the other representing the extreme right, advocate and practise seeking as close as possible security ties with the United States—if need be at the expense of Estonia’s other allies in NATO and the European Union. Prime Minister Ratas has been unwilling and unable to check this shift as his Centre Party, which picks up the lion’s share of the ethnic Russian vote in Estonia, has tried to solve its associated credibility problem since taking power in November 2016 by leaving foreign and security policy to its coalition partners. The details, however, of how the terms of the MoU signed with the United States are to be implemented remain unclear. Estonian officials state that security regulations are not generation-specific, with the same rules ap-

90 plying to 3G, 4G and 5G networks. Estonia follows a global trend here, with concerns relating to network and data integrity having been acute for at least a decade. This would seem to suggest that Elisa’s existing collaboration with Huawei has so far passed muster with the Estonian authorities—and would make it difficult for them to cogently argue for the exclusion of the company in the future. Huawei, in their response to the US-Estonian MOU, indicated it would challenge any such move in courts.

The Removing of Huawei Opens up Doors to its Competitors Experts also note that mobile telephone networks accrue technology over time, the layers of which are not easy to unpick. Existing support stations, using 3G or 4G technology, are said to be easy to convert, for example, to accommodating 5G network traffic. All this requires is the addition of a 5G radio sender and the installation of new software. Meanwhile, the rest of the network—apart from the radio transmission component—remains the same. This means any restrictions—such as those aimed at denying Huwaei, for example, access to the entire network—would need to be extended to earlier technologies as well. When assessing technological security risks, Estonia has thus far officially made no distinction between radio and “backbone” network equipment. There may be a silver lining, however, to Estonia’s alignment with the wishes of the United States—of which the government need not be unaware. Removing Huawei and other Chinese companies from the contention opens up doors to their competitors. In Europe, the two main alternative large- scale suppliers of 5G technology are Finnish Nokia and Swedish Ericsson. Ericsson especially has been subcontracting Estonian hi-tech companies to manufacture parts for 5G technologies which are then sold world-wide. Ur- mas Ruuto, Ericsson’s head of sales in Estonia, says that the number of such contracts awarded to Estonian suppliers extends to double figures. He also states that the United States has become a particularly lucrative market for Ericsson as there is no competition from Huawei and massive investments are made into 5G networks.5

Not a Part of Estonia’s IT Success Story Estonian entrepreneurs have recently tried to make the case that the government should try and keep politics out of business.6 Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu stated after the signing of the MOU with the United States that

91 ECONOMY it not directed against Huawei. He said that China is an important trade part- ESTONIA ner for Estonia, with imports totalling €594 million and exports €185 million in 2018. There are reports that Chinese enterprises would be willing to contribute funds towards the construction of an under-sea tunnel between Helsinki and Tallinn. Should it materialise, the tunnel could become an important link in a prospective new transport route extending from the Arctic Sea via Nor- way and Finland to Tallinn, whence it would carry on as Rail Baltic through Latvia and Lithuania to Poland. Both the Finnish and Estonian governments, however, while rhetorically supportive of the idea of a tunnel, have been loathe to commit themselves to any practical measures thus far. Part of the Estonian government’s reticence has to do with the way China has used its financial leverage in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Greece and elsewhere for its own political ends—the most visible of which are attempts to manipulate EU foreign policy. Interestingly, there have been reports that a previous Estonian IT and foreign trade minister in the current government was forced to replace her Huawei phone with an iPhone.7 There has been very little debate on the issue outside expert circles. The public appears to be inured to appeals to national security, trumping all other considerations. The mobile networks, whatever their logistical value, are not seen as part of Estonia’s IT success story. That, in turn, tends to be an increasingly ethereal affair from the point of view of the Estonian state and society, as globally successful Estonian start-ups—such as Taxify or Transferwise—tend to make the real money elsewhere and thus contribute little in real terms. Estonia’s e-governance drive has also seemed to stall over the past few years. While the volume and coverage of public IT services remains impressive—there is little in the way of bureaucratic procedure that cannot be done online—it is increasingly suffering from funding issues. Ambitious data centralisation projects languish as a result of budget overshoot and the entire government-citizen interface is looking increasingly out of date. The Estonian ID-card with its computer chip, used for services as diverse as medical prescriptions and electronic voting, has increasingly been beset by security problems.

AHTO LOBJAKAS is an independent Estonian analyst. He is educated in Sweden and the United Kingdom. He was the Brussels correspondent of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 2000–2010. He currently writes on Estonian politics.

92 ASPEN.REVIEW Perverted EDIT ZGUT CULTURE Democracies OLIGARCHIZATION DEMOCRATIC DEFICIT

The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It Yascha Mounk Harvard University Press 2018

In the age of a global democratic recession, we cannot get enough of scholarly work on how contemporary liberal democracies are being challenged by populism. Yascha Mounk’s book entitled “The People vs. Democracy” is one of the latest in this series and is an interesting exercise in political sociology. The author had a truly ambitious goal—not only coming to terms with populism and trying to fine-tune the gap between the phenomena and democratic backsliding but also to find solutions in global terms. His contribution—split into three main themes, diagnosis, etiology and therapy—is nonetheless a huge added value to comprehending the complexity of these patterns by trying to connect the dots between the United States, Europe and Asia. Readers from Central/Eastern Europe may, however, have a certain feeling that various parts of his critical diagnosis seem to be based mainly on American pressure points. First, Mounk’s basic assumption is that even if the idea of a global democratic recession was largely a myth before 2016, with the victory of Donald Trump—together with the multiple crises of the EU—it became a reality. He is rightfully claiming that democracy no longer appears to be the only game in town. What makes Mounk’s approach debatable is that, according to him, the process of democratic consolidation really has been a one-way street up until recently. It is worth bearing in mind the argument

Aspen.Review/Perverted 93 CULTURE of Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way who claimed that while the end of the OLIGARCHIZATION Cold War triggered a wave of democratization, it also triggered a wave of hybridization. Hence, this is not a phenomenon that prevailed mainly after 2010, and one of the regional examples of a hybrid regime, inhabiting the gray zone between an established democracy and a dictatorship, was Slova- kia after the democratic transition. His main thesis is that liberalism and democracy—the essences of which in his account are rule of law and the popular will—are starting to be at odds with each other, meaning that liberal democracy is also being undermined by a tendency to emphasize “liberal” at the expense of “democracy.” While Mounk highlights that “the legitimacy of judicial review is a necessary safeguard” (…) he also claims that “the simple truth is that it makes many issues on which ordinary people have strong opinions out of political contestation”. It resembles the concept of Koen Abts and Stefan Rummens, who argued that “that the anonymous rule of law is not as innocent as it seems.” In their study entitled “Populism versus Democracy” the authors have highlighted the paradoxical concept of constitutional democracy, where “the law usually institutes and conceals the dominance of particular groups in society such as, for instance, white, male, property owners.” Therefore, as they put it, political legitimacy requires that supreme authority resides not with the law but with the people. According to Mounk, liberal democracies might be perverted in two ways: illiberal democracy (democracy without rights) and undemocratic liberalism (rights without democracy).

Illiberal Democracy and Undemocratic Liberalism Mounk notes that our political regimes are no longer functioning like liberal democracies and increasingly look like “undemocratic liberalism”, but the log- ic of his argument regarding rule of law seems to be rather twisted from a Cen- tral/Eastern European perspective. This is especially so given the volume of constitutional political developments in Poland, where Law and Justice (PiS) could manage a judiciary overhaul by amplifying impatience with liberal constraints on the government with checks and balances viewed as obstacles of getting things done for the people. Given that rule of law has been undermined by the Polish and the Hungarian governments, and various global democra-

94 cy indexes have highlighted that these democracies have seen the most widespread democratic erosion in the past 5 years, the respective governments are under Article 7 procedures for the first time in the history of the EU. According to Mounk, liberal democracies might be perverted in two ways: illiberal democracy (democracy without rights) and undemocratic liberalism (rights without democracy). Conceptually speaking, his notion of “illiberal democracy” is an oxymoron as the liberal pillars of democracy are indispensable to the democratic process itself. As Wojciech Sadurski has rightly put it: if the very liberal rights that are part of the guarantees of democracy are eroded of substance, the system loses guarantees of self-protection and democracy become merely formal. In Mounk’s understanding, “undemocratic liberalism” is being embodied by the European Union; he argues that one reason why our system has become less strictly democratic is that many important topics have been taken out of political contestation, which merged with the growing pressure of technocratization and oligarchization. It is not clear, however, how the conceptual framework of “undemocratic liberalism”is particularly liberal, as Mounk himself also emphasizes that democratic decisions need to be carried out by public bodies who have some degree of autonomy.

Political State Capture Furthermore, his diagnosis about the growing power of unelected institutions within the EU seems to be exaggerated in light of new intergovernmentalism. In terms of decision-making, intergovernmental platforms such as the European Council and the Eurogroup remain the most important EU institutions. Nonetheless, this intergovernmentalism fits into his argument about the democratic deficit, not only because the negotiations are being pre- pared by the technocratic elites, but because of the “there is no alternative” sort of approach that prevailed throughout the Eurozone crisis. Also, while he is highlighting the significant role of money in the political system, by mainly focusing on the explosion of the lobby industry, he did not actually elaborate on the issue of political state capture and systemic corruption, partly financed by the EU throughout generous subsidies. To put it more blatantly, he did an excellent job of pressing home (the US) the point, but missed the opportunity to underline a key feature of illiberal system-transformation in CEE.

95 CULTURE Another provocative argument of Mounk’s book is that “to under- OLIGARCHIZATION stand the nature of populism, we must recognize that it is democratic and illiberal”. He claims that populism’s fundamental nature is democratic inasmuch as it expresses the will to restore power to the people. By referring to leading analysts of populism who have refused to acknowledge this drive, he is referring to Jan-Werner Müller who identified populism as anti-plural- ism, making a claim to an exclusive moral representation of the “real people. What makes his conceptualization a paradox is that while Mounk shares Jan-Werner Müller‘s concern at the democratic damage already done by anti-pluralist, therefore anti-democratic populists, he still insists that “there is something democratic to the energy that drives” them. Ironically, to describe populists’ democratic commitment, Mounk quotes Viktor Orbán who celebrated Donald Trump’s victory by saying that it marked America’s transition from ‘liberal non-democracy’ to ‘real democracy’.

How did we get there? While the larger part of the book is focused on the populist rise of Don- ald Trump, Mounk is aiming to connect the dots between the US president and his European counterparts. He emphasizes the classic approach about elites that are corrupt and working on behalf of outside interests—their slogan is “I am your voice and everyone else is a traitor.” He identifies three major developments that have been driving the contemporary instability of democracy. Firstly, he claims that in the past citizens built up loyalty to their political system because it kept the peace and swelled their pocket- books. One of the gravest pressure points was that in contrast to the period after the Second World War, liberal democracies could no longer guarantee their citizens a very rapid increase in their living standards. Secondly, empowering outsiders, digital technology destabilizes governing establishment all over the world and spreads up and speeds up the pace of change. As a result, political outsiders can spread lies and hatred without abandon. On top of that, populists have been able to successfully exploit the new technology most efficiently, undermining the basic element of liberal democracy. While he is mainly focused on Trump, the analysis fails to identify other relevant pressure points such as media capture, state-led manipulation and subversive Russian disinformation that amplifies democratic deterioration and the success of populists in CEE.

96 Thirdly, he highlights identity-based fears regarding the increasing level of xenophobia now that citizens have to learn how to live in a more equal and diverse democracy, stressing that demographics are a key pressure points both for North America and Europe. One reason why our system has become less strictly democratic is that many important topics have been taken out of political contestation, which merged with the growing pressure of technocratization and oligarchization.

What Should be Done? Mounk admits that meeting all of these challenges is going to be extremely difficult, and yet he tries to provide global solutions to a many-faced monster. Having a look at his suggestions about how to fix the economy, a decent Eu- ropean-style social democrat narrative prevails. From diagnosis and etiology, he moves to extensive recommenda- tions, with a threefold approach. In order to stop the rise of populism, economic policy must be fixed by responding to complex fears and envisioning a better tomorrow with the basic elements of the welfare state to be restored. He suggests, among other things, that the state could do much more to ensure that those who have been most heavily impacted by automatization will be able to obtain a life of material dignity. Speaking about a new tax system, he claims that governments should change the behavior of the super-rich by stepping up criminal punishment for big-time tax evaders. While he is rightfully encouraging democratic opposition to stand up proactively, stressing that this kind of “joint rebellion” can make the lives of populist governments difficult in practice, he’s wrong by claiming that in Hun- gary mass protest may have helped convince Viktor Orbán to allow Central European University to keep operating even after he passed a law to disband it. Although it may be fashionable for an activist to campaign for the mainstream party, he emphasises that it is often the only way to stand up for democracy. In a nutshell, he is proposing a forward-looking strategy that helps them win the next elections to implement meaningful improvements once they form the government. It is especially relevant in Poland and Hun- gary where the opposition can only stand a chance if they join forces due to the uneven playing political field.

97 CULTURE Instead of the radical leftist rejection of the nation, he suggests em- OLIGARCHIZATION bracing inclusiveness by forging a new language of inclusive patriotism. “Nationalism is like a wild half domesticated animal. As long as it remains under control, it can be of tremendous use and genuinely enrich our lives but it is always threatening to break free of the cost training put on it and when it does it can be deadly.” The first step would be to educate them together: in Germany, that would mean rethinking the three-tier school system and make it much easier for immigrant children to attend university. In the US it would mean a renewed focus on desegregated schools. Populism’s fundamental nature is democratic inasmuch as it expresses the will to restore power to the people. With regards to the hate speech prevailing on social media, he warns not throw the baby out with the bathwater, claiming that any sort of censorship would ultimately undermine the very foundation of liberal democracy and politicians like Trump would gain the right to censor whatever they dis- like. By highlighting the importance of renewing civic faith and rebuilding trust in politics, he is stressing that opposition politicians have an incentive to uncover gross forms of misconduct and state corruption. The author has nevertheless delved into a heroic endeavor to identify silver bullets to all those who are concerned about liberal democracy. Giv- en his anxiety, however, about people falling out of love with democracy, he should have provided at least a couple of points regarding how rule of law is valuable and why individual rights should be considered inviolable. This is especially because—as we have also learned from his book—there is a very low level of trust within democratic institutions providing a favorable back- ground for authoritarian populist backsliding not only in Central Eastern Europe but also in the United States.

EDIT ZGUT is a Hungarian political scientist based in Warsaw. She is a guest lecturer at the University of Warsaw, Centre for Europe. She is a PhD student at IFIS, in the Polish Academy of Sciences. Her main field of research is illiberalism in Central Europe and the constraining role of the EU. Edit Zgut previously worked at Political Capital Research and Consultancy Institute in Budapest as a foreign policy analyst. She has also been teaching International Relations at Pazmany Peter Catholic University in Hungary. | Photo: Péter Kiss, D1 Photo studio

98 ASPEN.REVIEW BENJAMIN Merit CUNNINGHAM is Privilege CULTURE MERITOCRACY INEQUALITY

The Meritocracy Trap Daniel Markovits Allen Lane 2019

In “1984” George Orwell inscribes his Ministry of Truth with the motto “War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Igno- rance is Strength.” In fictional Oceania, words no longer mean what they did, and can even signify the opposite. While this madness epitomizes a kind of totalitarian nightmare, the power of the image, and the book as a whole, comes as readers recognize similar—if less extreme—patterns in their own societies. Today, similar inversions abound and they range from the silly to the sinister. Once a symbol of youthful rebellion and music videos as an emerging art form, the cable channel MTV—that is “Music Television”—no longer plays music and instead uses cheap, mass produced reality shows to sell con- sumer goods to kids. In Orwellian terms you might say counterculture now equals consumption. Equally absurd, even as BP spilled 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, the firm’s marketing emphasizes a commitment to renewable energy, but still directs 96 percent of capital expendi- ture toward oil and gas. Black, it seems, is the new green. As Yale law professor Daniel Markovits argues in “The Meritocracy Tramp” the same now occurs with the seemingly benign term “merit”. Where- as aristocracy, plutocracy and kleptocracy are widely discredited methods for organizing society, predicating success, wealth and power on effort, talent and

Aspen.Review/Meritocracy 99 CULTURE achievement looks like the best possible alternative. “Meritocracy,” Markovits MERITOCRACY writes, “has become the present era’s literal common sense.” But it actually drives many of the world’s fundamental economic and political problems. More so than any time in history the best jobs (and the best pay) are obtained through open competition. While the wealthy once passed wealth down to their children through dynastic succession, and aristocrats hardly ever worked, today the rich and powerful almost all have jobs. In fact, the highest paid bankers, lawyers and CEOs frequently work insane hours. Huge hourly pay, and massive hours differentiate this new ruling class from the middle class, while convincing the beneficiaries that extreme effort means they deserve special status. “When it frames inequality as justified, meritocracy deprives those at the bottom of an oppressor against whom to assert high-minded claims of justice,” Markovits writes. Wealthy kids often have take special courses or hire tutors to prepare—something not possible for a poor kid. This is the equivalent of an Olympic 100 meter race that allows some runners to openly use steroids.

The Winners Almost Start the Game with Historic Advantages In what now seems obvious, this pushes people left behind to invent op- pressors, “constructing an identity politics of their own”. In recent years, the bigoted assertion of purportedly male, white and Christian identities (among others) has been an unfortunate result. Meanwhile, extreme cases of isolated greed and wrongdoing—say the infamous, imprisoned pharma- ceutical mogul Martin Shkreli who famously raised the price of an essential anti-parasitic drug to $560 per pill—serve as distractions that help solidify the system. “Rising inequality is not driven principally by villains, and mor- alistic attacks on bad actors neglect morally complex but massively more consequential structural wrongs,” Markovits writes. Even as professional competition is now open to the best possible candidates, the contest for what Markovits calls “glossy jobs” (as compared to “gloomy jobs”) is actually rigged. While anybody is welcome to try out, the eventual winners almost always start the game with historic advantages. Ad- mission to top universities in the United States, to take a simple example, is determined in part by results on the supposedly objective SAT exam. But wealthy

100 kids often have take special courses or hire tutors to prepare—something not possible for a poor kid. This is the equivalent of an Olympic 100 meter race that allows some runners to openly use steroids, while insisting that losers concede they lost a fair contest. It comes as no surprise that there are more students at Harvard and Yale from families in the top 1 percent of incomes than those come from the entire bottom 50 percent of income distribution. Elite education translates into an elite job that then allows a new generation to finance those same test preparation classes for their own kids. As Markovits demonstrates, children born into elite households begin distancing themselves from the womb. By the time they turn three years old, a kid born to two professional parents has heard 20 million more words than one whose parents hold non professional jobs, and 30 million more than a child whose parents are on welfare. In this area, and many others, the gap between elites and the middle class is bigger and growing more rapidly than gaps between the middle and lower classes. Data shows that a super-rich, hyper-educated minority is separating itself from everybody else, leaving the middle class and poor then to fight among themselves for the scraps. “Meritocrats may be made rather than born, but they are not self-made,” Markovits writes.

Inheritance Comes in Less Obvious Ways Unlike aristocrats of the past, meritocrats are wary of passing wealth down to their children through monetary inheritance. To do so would ex- pose the myth of meritocracy—that elites have earned everything they got—as a lie. But inheritance comes in less obvious ways. Markovits cal- culates that—over the course of childhood through private school tuition, tutors and special training, trips to museums, and after school activities—a family in the top 1 percent of income invests $10 million more per child in education than a typical middle class family. “This sum values an elite child’s meritocratic inheritance,” Markovits writes. “It’s an inheritance because it runs from parents to children and promotes an elite family’s dynastic ambitions.” Once in motion, the meritocratic cycle accelerates. In expensive private schools, students further distance themselves from their counterparts. Elite education translates into an elite job that then allows a new generation to finance those same test preparation classes for their own kids. Ensconced

101 CULTURE in a glossy job, elites justify their inflated salaries and sense of importance MERITOCRACY with the genuine belief that is has come about from hard work. At some point, no amount of effort can close the gap or allow an outsider entry to this elite status. “To be middle class in a mature meritocracy is to be not just old-fashioned but backward looking,” Markovits writes. Quite a lot of the wealth generated via capital gains is actually labor wealth in disguise. High level executives and CEOs are paid for work through equity in the company, for example, rather than cash. In a structural sense, Markovits’s argument runs counter to the one made by French economist Thomas Piketty’s 2013 book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century”. Piketty argued that growing inequality comes as rates of return on capital outpace overall economic growth. That signifies that people that control property (capital) are keeping an increased share of profits for themselves, at the expense of everybody else.

In the US, Economic Inequality is Generally Worse While Markovits agrees that inflated returns on capital have tilted economic benefits toward the rich, he contends that it accounts for a mere fraction of the problem. He concludes that three-quarters of the increased wealth among the top 1 percent over the past 50 years has come from the redistri- bution of labor income, not return on capital. Rich people, he says, are getting richer because they get paid bigger and bigger salaries. “Meritocratic inequality principally arises not from the familiar conflict between capital and labor,” he writes, “but from a new conflict—within labor—between su- perordinate and middle class workers.” Markovits points out that quite a lot of the wealth generated via capital gains (which are also taxed at lower rates than labor income) is actually labor wealth in disguise. High level executives and CEOs are paid for work through equity in the company, for example, rather than cash. “Over the past twenty years, roughly half of all CEO compensation across the S&P 1500 has taken the form of stock or stock options.” Even traditional employer-based private pensions (once more common for the middle class, and now skewed to elite jobs) or matching 401K investment plans accumulate size and strength pro- portionate to the number of years worked (labor).

102 Much of Markovits’s argument centers on the United States, where economic inequality is generally worse than in Europe and socio-economic divisions have accelerated faster in the past half century. To illustrate the massive divide, Markovits juxtaposes Palo Alto, California—home to Stan- ford University and dozens of Silicon Valley startups—with St. Clair Shores, Michigan—a working class suburb of Detroit about 20 minutes from where I grew up. In 1960, median income, housing prices and education levels were about the same in both places. Today, median incomes in Palo Alto triple St. Clair Shores, and houses are twenty times more valuable. Meanwhile, Palo Altans are three times more likely to have a bachelor’s degree and five times more likely to have graduate or professional degrees.

The American Education System Benefits Existing Elites Markovits is not the first to question the merits of meritocracy in the United States, a country that bases its entire national narrative on self-determina- tion and hard work. In 2015, Harvard law professor Lani Guinier published “The Tyranny of Meritocracy,” which attacked the ways the American education system benefits the existing elites. The fourth edition of another major sociological study, “The Meritocracy Myth,” by scholars Stephen J. McNamee and Robert K. Miller Jr. came out in 2018. It emphasized how race, class and gender often mediate any competition. In 2016, economics scholar and New York Times columnist Robert H. Frank published “Suc- cess and Luck,” which argued that the rich underestimate the role luck has played in their success. But Markovits’s use of data to demonstrate the impact of meritocracy, and his ability to fit it within a larger macroeconomic narrative separates this book from earlier inquiries. Even as the United States represents the extreme “mature meritocracy”, a growing meritocratic divide is apparent in many countries. Even as the United States represents the extreme “mature meritocracy,”, a growing meritocratic divide is apparent in many countries. As far back as 1958, the British sociologist Michael Young forecast a dystopian meritocratic future for the UK in his book “The Rise of the Meritocracy”. He was sufficiently appalled when this term of derision took on positive conno- tations under the New Labour governments of the 1990s to reengage in the debate. “It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit,”

103 CULTURE he wrote in a 2001 opinion piece in The Guardian. “It is the opposite when MERITOCRACY those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into a new social class without room in it for others.”

Meritocracy Fosters Educational Apartheid Globally, between 1988 and 2008, the top 1 percent of earners saw their incomes grow at three times the rate of the world economy as a whole. To- day, inequality in France and Germany is about the same as it was in the United States in the 1980s—a gap that once appalled Europeans. “Econom- ic decline, cultural stagnation, and political alienation in St. Clair Shores have close parallels in Blackpool (England), Amiens (France) and Bucken- berg-Pforzheim (Germany),” Markovits writes. While numbers in the UK track American trends closest, not all of Britain’s top earners are actually Brits. According to the European Banking Authority, 73 percent of Euro- pean bankers earning more than €1 million per year are based in the UK. Meanwhile, the Bulgarian thinker Ivan Krastev has written about meritocracy breeding resentment for the European Union, where multinational teams of experts set policies for everybody else. “The paradox of the current political crisis in Europe is rooted in the fact that the Brussels elites are blamed for the same reasons that they praised themselves for: their cosmopolitanism, their resistance to public pressure and their mobility,” Krastev writes. The private sector follows a similar meritocratic playbook, often sharing personnel back and forth with Brussels, while international corporations shuttle managers from metropolis to metropolis. The private sector follows a similar meritocratic playbook, often sharing personnel back and forth with Brussels, while international corporations shuttle managers from metropolis to metropolis. Krastev compares the movement of this elite class to the transfer of football players. A consultant for McKinsey is a lot like a French striker who is equally comfortable scoring goals in Madrid, Milan, Munich or Manchester. “But what happens when these teams start to lose or the economy slows down?” he asks. “Their fans abandon them. That’s because there’s no relationship connecting the ‘players’ and their fans beyond celebrating victories. They are not from the same neighborhood. They don’t have mutual friends or shared memories.”

104 Markovits demonstrates that meritocracy breeds inequality, hinders social mobility and fosters economic and educational apartheid. Even meritocrats are harmed by longer working hours, as their children forego childhood to jump on the conveyor belt of elite training at ever younger ages. “In a mature meritocracy, schools and jobs dominate life so immersively that they leave no self over apart from status,” he writes. If the causes and effects are clear, the solutions less so. While Marko- vits offers some ideas, changing tax laws for example, they require winning political battles. True believers in meritocracy are unlikely to be convinced by his data. Like any prevailing ideology, their belief is wrapped in a moral argument that sees everything they posses as justly earned. Furthermore, meritocrats occupy positions of power and in recent decades politics have managed to shape government, lawmaking and political competition to meet their own ends. Changing meritocracy may require meritocrats to reform themselves. “Although meritocracy once opened up the elite to outsiders,” Markovits writes, “the meritocratic inheritance now drives a wedge between meritocracy and opportunity.” Or as Orwell might say, merit is privilege.

BENJAMIN CUNNINGHAM writes for The Economist, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Le Monde Diplomatique, and The American Interest. He is an opinion columnist for the Slovak daily Sme and a PhD candidate at the University of Barcelona. ASPEN.REVIEW PRZEMYSŁAW WIELGOSZ Growth on CULTURE the European POLAND MODERNIZATION Periphery

Europe’s Growth Champion: Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland Marcin Piątkowski Oxford University Press 2018

Marcin Piątkowski’s book may be disliked on both sides of the barricade of the main political dispute in Poland. It deprives the conservatives of the historical myth of the Old Republic, to which they would very much like to take us at the end of the second decade of the twenty-first century. However, this is not the only reason why you should read it. Milan Kundera once created a figure that contained the essence of the mythological self-definition of the Polish (first dissident and then co-ruling) intellectuals of the 1980s and 1990s. It depicts our part of Europe kidnapped by a communist bull from the East, but stubbornly striving to fulfill its historical destiny and return to its supposedly natural place among the nations

106 Aspen.Review/RiseOfPoland of the West. This is exactly how Polish post-Solidarity liberals described the three decades after the fall of communism in 1989. Poland and its neighbors were returning to Europe, our economies were becoming normal again, making up for lost time in the black hole of communism, and our citizens were finally regaining their lost democracy. Marcin Piątkowski’s book proposes a radical break with this beautiful vision. The author, an economist who for years has been a senior economist at the World Bank in Beijing, mercilessly overthrows all its pillars, demonstrating that in its long history Poland has never been part of the West— there was nowhere to go back to, as the economic model implemented with the reforms of the 1990s had not functioned in this area in pre-communist times—so there was no question of normality, and finally, during the first free elections on 4 June 1989, we did not regain democracy in Poland, because it simply did not exist here before. What is more, communism was not a black hole, but a key event in Polish history. Noble privileges quickly paralyzed institutions and the state and the manor system instilled in Poland the conviction that our most important comparative advantage should be a cheap labor force. Piątkowski is not at all intent, however, on denouncing three decades of building capitalism in Poland. Paraphrasing Hegel, one can say that instead he proposes to turn the story of this period from the “romantic head” to the “economic feet”, and to put everything in a proper historical context. And this last element is the strongest in his proposal.

The Polish Troubles Began in the Sixteenth Century In fact, almost half of Europe’s Growth Champion is devoted to economic history. The author begins his story in the sixteenth century, when, in his opinion, the Polish troubles began. It was then, contrary to the vision of the Golden Age that has been fed to us, that the elite of the emerging Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth chose the worst option. They based their political model on the privileges of the nobility, founded the economic model on the manor, using agricultural monoculture and serfdom, and thus bringing about the condition of a peripheral country. Noble privileges quickly paralyzed institutions and the state (depriving them of the army and off tax revenues), and the manor system instilled in Poland the con-

107 CULTURE viction that our most important comparative advantage should be a cheap POLAND labor force. This was repeated by successive generations of local elites, and 1989 instilled this discourse with a new life in a neoliberal form. Using hard data, Piątkowski pre-empts any arguments of conservative historians who have recently tried to relativize serfdom and promote a vision of the Sar- matian Republic of prosperity. The level of consumption, the literacy rate, the number and autonomy of cities, the legal order, the volume of tax revenues—all this put the Commonwealth far behind the West. Indeed, there is something shocking in the analysis of indicators de- scribing the ratio of GDP in Poland to GDP in Western Europe, which after reaching about 53% in the sixteenth century, systematically decreased until the beginning of the nineteenth century (to 38%), increased in the second half of the nineteenth century (56%), then fell again in the interwar period (45%) and grew after 1945 (until the 1970s). It turns out that the GDP level was catching up with the Western one only during the partitions and communism. Apparently, Poland’s independence was bad for the growth of the income of its inhabitants. But is it any wonder if for centuries independence meant the sovereign power of the nobility?

The Landed Gentry as a Serious Brake on Modernization This World Bank economist does not genuflect before economic indicators. As a solid institutionalist, he is forced to acknowledge that Poland’s main problem was not too little investment, competitiveness or technology, but the social barriers behind all these deficits. The most serious impediment to modernization was the landed gentry—a class which, due to its dispropor- tionate political power, economic particularism and xenophobic, anti-intellectual ideology, brought about the collapse of the country in the eighteenth century and again in the interwar period of the twentieth century. Piątkowski proves that during the first two decades of its rule in the Pol- ish lands, communism produced changes without which it would be difficult even to dream of a leap into modernity. At the same time, he quotes enough hard data to justify the claim that if communist Poland had ended in the late 1960s, we would have remembered it today with respect, recognition and ten- derness. Even when the author compares communism to the fourteenth century plague in Western Europe, he does it tongue in cheek, demonstrating how much good the brutal destruction of the old feudal world did.

108 It is equally interesting when the author of Europe’s Growth Champi- on begins to revise the history of Polish transition after 1989. It is a peculiar revision, however, because it looks like sincere hagiography. The whole process arouses the enthusiasm of Piątkowski, who goes as far as to say that the three decades after the Round Table were the best period in the history of Poland. Yet he does introduce some significant corrections to the hackneyed “success story of Polish reforms”. First of all, it turns out that there were two fathers of the success: Leszek Balcerowicz, who played the role of a bad policeman and Grzegorz Kołodko, the good policeman of transition. Balcerow- icz brought about shock therapy with unemployment, pauperization, reces- Poland’s main problem was not too little investment, competitiveness or technology, but the social barriers behind all these deficits. sion and the collapse of entire branches of the economy. Kołodko ushered the country into an impressive growth path, reducing unemployment and poverty, and at the same time slowing down privatization. Interestingly, Bal- cerowicz’s reinstatement as the Finance Minister in 1998 resulted in a sharp drop in GDP growth and a renewed increase in unemployment and poverty.

Reformed Neoliberalism Saved Poland from a Drift toward Russian Solutions The history of transition outlined in this way becomes more dramatic. But the attempt at presenting its balance sheet reveals many of the key limita- tions of the author’s approach. The emphasis on the role of institutions is connected with his failure to notice the dynamics of social processes and conflicts. This in turn results in the claim that external aggression or pressure is the only effective catalyst for changes allowing societies to move from oligarchy to democracy. Even if this is the case historically and statistically, no aggression or occupation would have been able to change anything without coinciding local conflicts and grassroots desire for change. It was like this in Poland in 1944, it was like this, all the differences notwithstanding, after 1989, when the shock therapy bluntly imposed by the IMF and the creditors of Warsaw collided with democratic aspirations and strong social resistance, expressed in thousands of strikes in 1991-1993. It was only from this clash that the somewhat less brutal, slightly less dog- matic, reformed neoliberalism contained in Grzegorz Kołodko’s Strategy for

109 CULTURE Poland emerged, which saved Poland from a drift towards Russian (authori- POLAND tarianism), Ukrainian (oligarchy) or Hungarian (destruction of the manufacturing sector of the economy) solutions. Additionally, the scale of the Polish success after 1989 does not seem to be as great as Piątkowski suggests. His data illustrating the dynamic GDP growth (also per capita), the increase in the number of students, the increase in consumption and wages, the decrease in unemployment, the inflow of investments and the positive effect of emigration and EU transfers should be contrasted with the latest data on the inequality rate (one of the highest in Europe), the increase in poverty and the percentage of people living below the minimum subsistence level (still huge—almost 40%!), the ratio of working time and productivity growth to wages (very unfavorable for wages), the median of wages (low), as well as the awareness of how disastrously low the starting point was for Poland in 1989 and how catastrophic the recession which Poland came out of was in 1993 (which explains the 7% growth rate) to put a damper on the author’s optimism.

The Most Important Summary of Thirty Years of Capitalism In fact, there are strong arguments undermining Piątkowski’s eponymous claim about Poland leaving the economic peripheries. After all, today we are a sub-supplier in the European division of labor, the majority of (still strong) industry is concentrated in assembly plants of Western corporations, and, as a result, dynamic Polish exports are characterized by a high share of imports. It is certainly better to be the periphery of the European Union than the periphery of world capitalism, but it is still not a successful economy. As long as our competitive advantage remains a cheap (and un- stable) labor, we will remain stuck in a modernized, but still largely insur- mountable, trajectory of peripheral development which Poland has been following for five centuries. There were two fathers of the success: Leszek Balcerowicz, who played the role of a bad policeman and Grzegorz Kołodko, the good policeman of transition. Incidentally, Piątkowski seems to be aware of the weakness of the economic model that has made Poland the European leader in growth. He knows that even if it functioned well in the 1990s (which in itself is a highly

110 controversial claim), it no longer guarantees success. This is why he proposes a fundamental correction, which he calls the Warsaw Consensus. As a combination of continuation and as an alternative to the neoliberal Wash- ington Consensus, it includes actions worthy not only of the World Bank’s leadership, “wiser after the crisis,” but also of a decent social democracy (e.g. strengthening institutions, increasing the employment rate, opening up to immigration, inclusive growth, a focus on well-being). It is certainly better to be the periphery of the European Union than the periphery of world capitalism, but it is still not a successful economy. Europe’s Growth Champion is one of the most important economic books of the year, and certainly the most important Polish summary of the thirty years of capitalism in our region. And this even if only because it provides excellent material for a serious discussion, which is so sorely lacking. After such a pronouncement, in an ideal world Marcin Piątkowski would probably become the chief economist of Polish liberals (both conservative and progressive), and his Warsaw Consensus would be the basis for the economic program of the Civic Platform (which today does not have one). In the real world, it remains to be hoped that his claims and proposals will boost the anemic discussion around the thirtieth anniversary of the political transition, as well as the Polish and Central European struggles with development and a peripheral status.

PRZEMYSŁAW WIELGOSZ is editor-in-chief of “The Library of Le Monde Diplomatique—polish edition” book series. Author, co-author and editor of several books, recently issued “TTIP--a Transatlantic Trap” (2015) and “The Dictatorship of Debt” (2016). Co-curator of the exhibition “Refugees. Present -- Absent” presented in gallery księgarnia/wystawa in Krakow, he cooperates with the Polish Theatre (Teatr Polski) in Bydgoszcz. Heart of Europe on the Periphery

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...... Partners www.Aspen.Review 28 The collapse of communism opened a new way for the post-1989 political elites and the media to de-historicize and distort such fundamental concepts of democracy as liberalism, feminism, socialism and human rights. Aspen 01-2020

COLIN CROUCH 01/2020 No.

We—Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Poles—have an inferiority complex. This is a shared feature.

Being aware of our shared inferiority complex —

can liberate us from it. Periphery the on Europe of Heart CSABA GYÖRGY KISS

Let’s be honest: Social media platforms are very slow when it comes to combating disinformation, but they are taking measures. RT and Sput- nik are not as prominent as they once were. DAVID ALANDETE

A large part of the capital owned by the rich is not held in physical assets but in some form of financial assets. Financial wealth is more liquid and for this reason it can easily be moved to tax havens, where it can benefit from lower tax rates. HANNA SZYMBORSKA

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PUBLISHED BY Aspen Institute Central Europe Palackého 1, CZ 110 00 Prague [email protected] AspenInstituteCE.org Year IX No. 01/2020 ISSN 1805-6806 (Print) ISSN 2570-6217 (Online) — Photos without credit: Aspen Review Archive